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Columbia  ®iiibc«ttp 

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LIBRARY 


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for  tl|F 

turrraHp  of  tl^f  iCibrarQ 

EBtahUfii|rti  igna 


William  Koccoc  CI)apcr 


GERMANY   VS.   CIVILIZATION. 

THE   LIFE  AND   LETTERS    OF   JOHN    HAY. 
2  vols.     Illustrated. 

LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  CAVOUR.  3  vols. 
Illustrated. 

ITALIC  A  :  Studies  in  Italian  Life  and  Letters, 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  VENICE. 

THE  DAWN  OF  ITALIAN  INDEPENDENCE: 
Italy  from  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  1814,  to  the 
Fall  of  Venice,  1849.  In  the  series  on  Conti- 
nental History.     With  maps,     a  vols. 

THRONE-MAKERS.  Papers  on  Bismarck,  Na- 
poleon III.,  Kossuth,  Garibaldi,  etc. 

POEMS,   NEVy  AND  OLD. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

NOTES  ON  THE  ATROCIOUS  WAR 


GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

NOTES  ON  THE  ATROCIOUS  WAR 


BY 

WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 


And  he  nviil  be  a  iviid  man;  his 
hand  ivill  be  against  e'very  many  and 
e'very  man" s  hand  against  him. 

Genesis  xvi,  12. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,    1916,   BY  WILLIAM   ROSCOE  THAYKR 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  March  tqib 


/6-   - 


1^  d6n 


NOTE 

While  this  book  is  on  the  press,  President 
Wilson  has  taken  a  firm  stand,  from  which, 
we  may  hope,  he  will  put  an  end  to  foreign 
arrogance  and  to  domestic  plotting  and  sedi- 
tion. My  references  to  his  policy,  written 
earlier,  reflect  the  grave  anxiety  which  many 
of  us  felt  during  the  autumn  and  winter,  and 
I  let  them  remain  because  they  bear  witness 
to  a  very  important  element  in  the  crisis.  The 
long  period  of  doubt  over  the  President's  in- 
tentions not  only  stifled  American  patriotism, 
but  greatly  encouraged  the  enemies  at  work 
in  the  United  States. 

In  this  sketch  I  have  purposely  assembled  a 
sufficient  body  of  the  characteristic  doctrines 
of  the  shapers  of  Prussian  policy,  from  Fred- 
erick the  Great  to  General  Bernhardi,  to  re- 
mind the  reader  of  the  essential  German  ele- 
ments underlying  the  Atrocious  War.  These 


vi  NOTE 

will  enable  him  to  see  that  my  own  conclu- 
sions are  based  on  German  premises  and  facts, 
and  not  on  calumnies  invented  by  foreigners. 
During  the  progress  of  the  struggle,  such  es- 
sentials are  often  forgotten,  or  are  obscured 
by  excitement  over  military,  naval,  or  diplo- 
matic events.  Nothing  is  more  important, 
however,  than  that  the  origins  of  this  conflict, 
and  the  doom  which  awaits  Civilization  unless 
Kultur  is  crushed,  be  thoroughly  understood. 

W.  R.  T. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts 
March  d,  1916, 


CONTENTS 

I.  Humiliation  —  not  Thanksgiving       .  i 

II.  Reality  or  Mirage? ii 

III.  Atavism 24 

IV.  Manipulating  Teutonic  Traits    .      .  37 
V.  The  Kaiser  and  Gott  Partnership    .  47 

VI.  William  the  Peacemaker       ...    65 

VII.  Kultur 80 

VIII.  Prussianizing  Germany     ....  106 
IX.  How  the  Atrocious  War  Began.      .  119 

X.  Belgium 134 

'  XI.  Mendacity 149 

XII.  The  Plot  to  Germanize  America      .  172 

XIII.  The  Shipwreck  of  Kultur     .      .      .201 

XIV.  Despotism  or  Democracy.?      .      .      .  222 


GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 
CHAPTER  I 

HUMILIATION  —  NOT  THANKSGIVING 

O,  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong. 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long; 
He  suffers,  but  he  cannot  suffer  wrong. 

Tennyson. 

FOR  the  second  time  since  the  Atrocious 
War  began,  the  President  of  the  United 
States  calls  upon  us  Americans  to  observe  a 
day  of  Thanksgiving,  on  which  we  shall  ex- 
press gratitude  for  the  manifold  blessings 
Providence  has  showered  upon  us. 

Our  harvests  have  surpassed  all  bounds. 
Our  industries,  under  the  unhealthy  stimulus 
of  war,  have  raised  the  wages  of  millions  of 
laborers.  Like  the  Pharisee  we  can  thank  God 
that  we  are  not  like  our  neighbors:  they  are  at 
war,  we  are  at  peace. 

A  year  ago.  President  Wilson  bade  us  hold  a 
similar  Thanksgiving ;  and  those  who  have  the 


2      GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

catchwords  of  religion  on  their  lips,  but  infi- 
delity in  their  hearts,  might  infer  —  from  our 
increased  prosperity  —  that  our  prayers  and 
thank-offerings  were  acceptable,  and  have 
been  rewarded  in  overflowing  measure. 

But  those  are  not  gods  of  the  spirit  who 
substitute  gifts  of  corn  and  copper  and  iron 
and  gasolene  for  the  spiritual  gifts,  for  lack  of 
which  our  souls  perish.  In  this  crisis  a  true 
prophet  of  the  soul  would  call  us  not  to  thanks- 
giving but  to  humiliation  —  the  humiliation 
that  every  heart,  into  which  the  faintest  in- 
stinct of  nobleness  has  glimmered,  must  feel 
when  it  recognizes  that  it  has  betrayed  the 
very  law  of  its  being. 

During  fourteen   months  the  memory  of 

our  dark  shortcoming,  of  our  great  refusal, 

-j       has  lain  like  a  mildew  on  our  American  con- 

'       science.   Some  of  us,  singly,  have  repudiated 

the  shame ;  but  even  if  every  American  had 

made  his  private  disavowal,  we  should  not 

^      have  been  freed  from  our  supreme  obligation. 

^   It  was  for  the  President  of  the  United  States, 


HUMILIATION  3 

sitting  in  the  chair  where  Washington  and 
Lincoln  have  sat,  the  guardian  for  the  time 
being  of  the  principles  on  which  this  Republic  . 

was  founded,  —  the  principles  which  have  up-  \I^ 
held  it  for  one  hundred  and  forty  years,  the  ^  /^ut^ 
principles  which  alone  justify  its  existence  T>uX^^-£Ji 
and  its  perpetuation,  —  it  was  for  President  ^^^'^^'^:^ 
Wilson,  speaking  for  this  nation,  to  utter  the 
word  of  repudiation  which  could  have  ab- 
solved  us  from  the  guilt  of  allowing  Belgium  la 

A      to  be  violated  without  our  protest. 
^^         He  kept  silent. 

.        Day  after  day  brought  news  of  fresh  atroci- 

^J^c.ties  committed  by  the  Germans  in  Belgium. 

^^^^^^'What  might  have  been  regarded  at  first  as  a 

\^cO^^^^  sporadic  cases  of  such  cruelty  as  often 

jAy^ccompanies  war,  proved  to  be  in  truth  only"V^>^^^ 

f^\^  the  beginning  of  the  enforcement  of  a  system 

^^pToi  Frightfulness,  deliberately  planned  years 

^(r        before  in  the  Bureau  of  the  Prussian  General 

Staff,  unhesitatingly  approved  by  the  German 

Emperor,  and  now  carried  out  with  diabolical 

precision.  Very  soon  the  weight  of  testimony 


4      GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

became    overwhelming,    but    still    President 

Wilson  was  silent.    Considerations  of  policy, 

doubts  as  to  expediency,  flitted  between  him 

and  his    conscience.     Perhaps   the   reported 

(J<Jt  ^     abominations  were  not  true;  it  was  the  duty 

Mk  '         of  the  President  of  the  United  States  to^sus- 

^  I    ;  ^  pend  judgment  until  he  had  heard  all  the  evi- 

^  ^    i  '  dence  from  every  side ;  if  he  protested  against 

^^^i^^       the  German  acts,  he  would    be   accused  of 

*^>  *       denying  the  neutrality  which  he  had  officially 

set  up  to  guide  this  country  throughout  the 

War;  the  etiquette  of  diplomacy  would  regard 

such  a  protest  as  not  only  out  of  order,  but  as 

unmannerly;  worse  still,  a  moral  protest  not 

backed  up  by  physical  force  would  be  futile,  — 

as  if  a  moral  act  could  ever  be  futile,  —  and 

the  Germans,  who  had  announced  that  they 

took  no  heed  of  anything  except  physical  force, 

would  laugh  at  us. 

And  so  President  Wilson  was  silent. 
The  days  slipped  by  and  grew  into  weeks. 
Thousands  of  non-combatants,  men,  women, 
and  children,  died  in  agony.   Even  the  inani- 


HUMILIATION  5 

mate  objects  of  beauty,  created  by  genera- 
tions of  men  to  whom  the  very  name  Prus- 
sian was  happily  unknown,  and  spared  by 
the  ravages  of  countless   earlier  wars,  were^/uct^Ve 
wantonly  destroyed.  ^^^  *  ^  Vt 

The  University  of  Louvain,  with  its  gem- 
like Library,  was  demolished;  the  Cathedral  U^j.  .^^ 
at  Malines  sank  in  ruins;  the  masterpieces  at  (^liaWA- 
Ypres,  at  Arras,  and  at  a  score  of  other  cities  2c^*^l^ 
went  down;  and  when  the  devastators  spread  ^^^^^^^^^Xul 
into   France,  they  made   the  Cathedral  of  U^  ^^»^ 
Rheims  —  the  national  shrine  of  French  wor-    '     ^  ' 
ship  for  seven  hundred  years  —  the  target 
of  their  artillery.  'i 

J  Still  President  Wilson  was  silent. 

But  while  time  brings  opportunity  it  does    ^     , 
not  take  away  remorse  for  opportunity  neg- r(. ':  , 
lected.  We  sin  in  time,  but  our  guilt  cannot   .,,       ^ 
be  measured  in  terms  of  years:  for  sin  and/ Ua  t^ 
remorse  are  moral  not  temporal.  Vax* 

Wherein  lay  our  guilt  ^  It  lay  in  our  failure 
as  a  nation  through  the  silence  of  the  Presi- 
dent to  bear  witness  to  the  deepest  truth 


-aAJL.    6      GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 


which  civilized  men  have  felt  or  can  feel.  A 
horde  of  military  barbarians  violated  the  neu- 
^^  ^  "" '  trality  of  little  Belgium,  which  we,  with  other 
-  /  g9^\ernments,  had  pledged  ourselves  to  up- 
hold, —  and  we  said  nothing.  And  then  that 
c^ ",  horde  sped  on,  its  gray-clad  regiments  sifting 
W^A*  over  Belgium,  as  the  showers  of  ashes  from 
J2^ -W^/Vesuvius  once  fell  upon  Pompeii  with  irre- 
uyr\^  mediable  havoc.  In  this  outrage  on  Humanity 
■^^I^^J^  also,  the  Huns  flung  their  challenge  at  us, 
'^'*^-W: '  and  we  said  nothing. 

^Y^.,.    But  we  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  were 
j^  /^ .      bound  by  the  strongest  obligations  to  speak 
i  ^^ \      up  for  the   sacred   principles  of  humanity. 
^S 'r  1  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^  "^^^^  powerful  free  people  in  the 
i^"  .1  "^ world,  and  to  possess  power  imposes  the  obli- 
T- •  «j     gation  to  use  it  in  behalf  of  the  weak.   The 
\jt^\vw.i  little  countries  looked  to  us  for  leadership, 
looked  and  listened  and  waited,  and  we  gave 
them  neither  sign  nor  sound.   They  would 
have  joined  us  in  protest  even  at  the  risk  of 
bringing  on  themselves  the  fury  of  the  Ger- 
mans, within  whose  reach  they  dwelt.   Our 


HUMILIATION  7 

silence  —  the  silence  of  President  Wilson  — 

"  Letting  '  I  dare  not '  wait  upon  *  I  would  ' "  — 
brought   to  them  the  desolating  conviction  j^^ 
that  the  United  States  would  officially  utter  ^J^t^ 
no  declaration  in  behalf  either  of  neutrality /^ '^^^*'^^-^ 
or  of  humanity;.  We  tacitly  admitted  that  a  '^^^^'^^ 
small  nation  has  no  rights,  that  neutral  na-  <5^^  ^ 
tions  may  be  overrun  and  destroyed  at  the    oiJi  ouj 
pleasure  of  a  powerful  aggressor.  The  Presi-  t£^JL^J^Ai^ 
dent's  silence  was  tantamount  to  acquiescing  ^^^^^ 
in  the  German  doctrine  that  might  is  right, 
that  matter  and  not  spirit  rules  the  universe, 
including  the  conduct  and  the  affairs  of  men. 
This  is  the  primal  infidelity. 

So  to  our  shame  we  let  it  be  implied  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  was  not 
officially  concerned  in  protesting  against  the 
subversion  of  neutral  rights,  or  the  swallow- . 

A  '      J. 

ing  up  of  a  small  nation  by  a  large,  or  by  j^ 

crimes  against  common  humanity.  It  was  as  ^"^  vj;^ 
if  President  Wilson,  clothed  with  the  moral /^^^^^ 
Strength  of  the  United  States,  had  been  walk-  o\Kf^  dLou 
ing  on  the  bank  of  a  stream,  and  had  seen  on 


8       GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

the  other  bank  a  colossal  brute  beating  a  little'^^  ^ 
girl;  and  the  President  had  said  to  himself:  ^        «xi, 
"There  is  no  boat  for  me  to  cross  by,  and  if  I     ,       ,._ 
shout,  the  ruffian  will  only  laugh.   After  all,  j^>.^ 
my  eyesight  is  not  very  good;  perhaps  I  don't 
see  clearly  what  he  is  doing.   I  ought  not  to         -  cju 
protest  unless  I  could  verify  the  fact  for  my- 
self; that  is  impossible;  so  I  will  look  the  other 
way  and  walk  on." 

Into  such  an  abyss  does  consideration  for 
the  etiquette  of  diplomacy  plunge  those'jfc^ho 
set  it  above  morals.  In  this  aspect,  oijlo- 
macy  is  indeed  a  code  distilled  from  the  imme- 
morial experience  of  the  guile  and  cruelty  of 
rulers,  which  sanctions  them  in  committing, 
as  officials,  crimes  which  all  but  the  wickedest 
of  them  would  shrink  from  as  individuals. 
If  plain  Professor  Woodrow  Wilson  had  wit- 
nessed such  an  assault,  we  may  be  sure  that 
he  would  not  have  doubted  the  veracity  of 
his  eyes,  and  that,  though  he  had  been  un- 
able to  rescue  the  little  girl  from  her  assailant, 
he  would  have  protested  in  loudest  tones. 


r%j  I.JW  vaT^ 


HUMILIATION  9 

The  assumption  that  nations  and  their 
rulers  cannot  be  bound  by  the  moral  laws 
which  bind  individuals  will  not  go  on  forever 
polluting  the  world.  It  also  iis.  the  spawn  of 
infidelity,  and  proceeds  from  the  theory  that 
men  collectively — whether  nations,  hierarch- 
ies, parties,  or  corporations — are  impersonal, 
abstract,  and  that,  having  no  souls,  they  are  ^*  *  *  ""'"^  ^ 
shut  out  from  moral  concerns.  -^  * 

ljj£  diplomacy  which  seals  the  lips  of  the 
sJRpy^pian  of  a  mighty  nation,  when  he  be-^}'?^  1^^ 
hold^wh'J^oiister  invade,  outrage,  torture,  and  ' 

destroy  a  tiny  nation,  is  born  of  the  Devil.  It 
stifles  chivalry;  it  leashes  in  the  desire  which 
is  an  instinct  in  the  heart  of  every  one  worthy 
of  the  name  of  man  to  rush  to  the  aid  of 
the  helpless  in  their  distress;  it  strangles  our 
common  heritage  of  humanity,  and  substitutes 
for  it  a  policy  of  selfishness,  which  evades 
responsibility  for  the  fate  of  our  fellow  men. 
After  Cain  slew  Abel,  the  Lord  said  unto  Cain, 
"Where  is  Abel  thy  brother.?"  And  he  said, 
"I  know  not:  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?'" 


10    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

So  ancient  and  of  such  bad  eminence  is  the 
precedent  which  tied  the  official  tongue  of 
the  United  States  when  the  German  Cain 
slew  Belgium  Li  he  conscience  of  our  coun- 
trymen sent  '  i  inquiry  to  Washington, 
** Where  is  Belgium?''  and  the  silence  at  the 
White  House  mutely  echoed  Cain's  reply, 
"I  know  not:  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 


# 


sw..^  <u«*iS/'^*" 


\ 


CHAPTER  II 

REALITY  OR  MIRAGE? 

If  we  could  only  alter  the  Germans  after  the  model  of  the 
English,  if  we  could  only  have  less  philosophy  and  more 
power  of  action,  less  theory  and  more  practice,  we  might 
obtain  a  good  share  of  redemption,  without  waiting  for  the 
personal  majesty  of  a  second  Christ. 

EcKERMANN,  Conversations  with  Goethe.  March  12, 1828. 

[Bohn  Translation,  p.  319.] 

BEFORE  I  proceed  to  trace  the  stages  by 
which  the  ancient  pagan  ideals  revived 
in  Prussia,  and  how  Prussia  then  diffused  them 
—  a  moral  Prussic  acid  —  through  Germany, 
I  wish  to  recall  that  other  Germany  which 
many  men  and  women  not  yet  past  middle 
age  remember  with  affection  and  now  with 
the  regret  born  of  a  tragic  disillusion. 

Throughout  the  nineteenth  century  Ger- 
many was  one  of  the  chief  fountains  from 
which  the  English-speaking  world  drew  most 
largely  its  supplies  of  philosophy  and  erudi- 
tion ;  and  of  poetry,  too,  because  the  poetry  of 


12     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Germany's  Golden  Age,  produced  by  Lessing, 
Goethe,  and  Schiller,  and  by  half  a  dozen 
balladists  and  lyric  singers,  came  like  a  reve- 
lation, or  new  message,  from  Apollo  to  his 
devotees  beyond  the  Alps  and  the  Rhine  and 
the  Atlantic. 

Coleridge,  if  not  the  earliest,  was  the  first 
far-carrying  voice  to  interpret  German 
thought,  and  especially  German  philosophy, 
in  England;  but  it  was  Carlyle,  the  might- 
iest of  modern  British  advocates  —  persist- 
ent, indomitable,  dynamic,  uncompromisingly 
computing  all  deeds  in  terms  of  righteousness, 
with  a  fund  of  indignation  and  of  humor  un- 
matched among  the  Germans  whom  he  intro- 
duced to  English  readers  —  Carlyle  it  was 
who  raised  a  marvelous  shrine  to  Goethe  and 
to  German  ideals.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  for  a  considerable  time  Goethe  was  as  the 
sun  by  which  many  persons  lived  their  lives  by 
day,  and  Kant  was  the  moon  by  which  they 
moved  among  the  ultimate  mysteries  which 
enshroud  man  as  by  night.   The  springs  of 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGE?  13 

Poesy  became  intermittent  and  then  dry  — 
Heine,  the  latest,  limpid,  sparkling,  swift, 
ironical,  melodious.  But  Philosophy  flowed  in 
ever-swelling  streams  —  Hegel,  whose  intoxi- 
cating draughts  caused  his  disciples  to  see 
equivalence  in  things  good  and  bad,  black 
and  white,  life  and  death,  interchangeable 
and  therefore  the  same ;  and  then  Fichte  and 
Schelling  and  Schleiermacher;  then  darker  and 
darker  streams,  till  we  reach  the  inky  pool  of 
Schopenhauer.  Let  the  waters  be  what  they 
might,  however,  the  thirsty  world  drank  of 
them  eagerly,  and  it  came  to  think  of  Ger- 
many as  the  land  whose  people  were  so  ab- 
sorbed in  philosophizing  about  where  man 
came  from  and  whither  he  was  going,  that  they 
paid  little  heed  to  his  actual  present  state. 

Erudition  also  kept  even  pace  at  first  with 
Philosophy,  and  then  distanced  it,  and  in- 
cluded it  among  the  topics  of  erudite  research. 
While  the  Germans  discovered  few  first  prin- 
ciples, they  were  most  nimble  in  seizing  foreign 
discoveries  and  in  elaborating  these  through 


14    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

every  variation.  They  organized,  if  they  did 
not  invent,  a  method  of  education,  using  that 
word  in  its  broadest  sense,  by  which  they  re- 
duced learning  to  a  system  as  admirably  classi- 
fied as  the  best  book  of  reference.  In  dealing 
with  ideas,  they  usually  became  doctrinaires; 
in  each  German  brain  one  idea  and  only  one 
grew  at  a  time,  like  the  plant  or  flower  in  a  pot. 
This  promoted  that  single-mindedness  which 
lies  behind  German  thoroughness.  It  has  its 
defects,  of  course ;  one  sometimes  is  bored  by 
doctrinaire  companions;  it  leads  to  Philistin- 
ism—  *'The  Germans,"  said  Goethe,  "cannot 
cease  to  be  Philistines";  ^  and  there  is  always 
the  danger  that  if  the  same  bad  idea  be  planted 
in  the  brains  of  nearly  all  the  people  of  a  one- 
ideaed  race,  there  will  be  uncurbed  unanimity 
for  evil  when  the  idea  is  translated  into  action. 
Man  and  the  Devil  were  joint  occupants  of  the 
first  garden,  and  the  Devil  has  not  yet  lost  his 
cunning  as  a  horticulturist.  Nevertheless,  in 
dealing  with  facts,  particularly  with  the  facts 

*  Eckermann,  Conversations,  p.  353. 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGE?  15 

of  physics,  chemistry,  and  philology,  the  eru- 
dite Germans  made  objectivity  their  stand- 
ard, and  strove  to  depersonalize  themselves  so 
completely  that  the  faculty  by  which  they 
observed  might  actually  see  the  Ding  an  sick, 
—  the  thing  in  itself,  —  beyond  the  idea  of  it 
which  alone  enters  human  consciousness. 

Foreigners  sought  the  learning  which  the 
German  universities  gave,  and  they  went  in 
such  increasing  numbers,  that  from  the  last 
quarter  of  the  century  onward  they  literally 
swarmed  at  the  chief  institutions ;  and  as  these 
students  were  unusually  hungry  for  knowl- 
edge, they  devoured  avidly  what  was  offered 
them,  becoming  enthusiastic  disciples  of  the 
German  method  and  of  the  professors  who 
taught  it.  Quite  naturally,  they  looked  back 
with  affection  upon  the  German  environment 
amid  which  was  planted  their  particular  Tree 
of  Knowledge.  Note  however,  that  until  after 
1870  the  universities  they  most  frequented 
were  non-Prussian:  so  the  Germans  with 
whom  they  came  into  friendly  relations  were 


i6    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

not  Prussians,  but  Saxons  and  Rhinelanders, 
Suabians  and  Bavarians. 

Among  these,  far  into  the  century,  life 
seemed  easy-going.  Each  State  had  its  army 
and  its  police  and  its  punctilio,  but  they  had 
not  yet  been  standardized  to  the  rigid  ma- 
chine-like pattern  of  Prussia.  Indeed,  the 
other  Germans  still  dared  to  regard  Prussia  as 
the  more  cultivated  Greeks  used  to  regard 
Macedonia,  and  they  openly  ridiculed  Berlin 
and  the  Berliners.  Little  cities  like  Diisseldorf 
and  Stuttgart,  large  cities  like  Dresden  and 
Munich,  cultivated  the  arts.  There  was  good 
music  ever)rwhere,  and  even  small  towns  main- 
tained a  theatre  where  not  only  the  classic 
German  dramas,  but  also  translations  of 
Shakespeare  and  Moliere  were  produced. 

The  traveler  from  England  or  America 
found  much  to  amuse  him  in  the  German  beds 
and  mysterious  bedclothes;  in  the  cooking, 
with  its  inexhaustible  supply  of  ham,  sausage, 
and  sauerkraut ;  in  the  beer  gardens,  where  the 
girth  of  the  habitues  swelled  visibly,  as  they 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGES  17 

poured  down  quart  after  quart  of  black  or 
yellow  beer:  in  the  way  in  which  men  kissed 
each  other  on  every  occasion,  and  in  their 
pompous  taking  off  of  hats  and  "having  the 
honor"  whenever  they  met.  The  foreigner 
noted  also  their  porcelain  stoves,  on  whose 
hospitable  tops  babies  were  kept  from  freezing 
on  coldest  nights,  and  the  table  manners,  from 
which  he  inferred  that  it  was  easier  for  a 
learned  German  to  discover  a  new  asteroid  or 
a  new  chemical  element,  than  the  use  of  a  fork. 
In  these  and  a  hundred  other  superficial  dif- 
ferences, not  to  mention  the  amazing  cos- 
tumes, the  foreigner's  sense  of  humor  was 
constantly  stirred. 

But  more  serious  aspects  checkered  his 
amusement.  He  wondered,  especially  if  he 
came  from  America,  at  the  extent  to  which 
German  men  had  shifted  the  heavy  burdens 
upon  women.  If  he  took  a  very  early  start,  he 
saw  from  the  window  of  his  carriage  the  peas- 
ant women  trudging  out  with  great  baskets 
on  their  backs  to  their  work  in  the  fields;  and 


i8    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

at  twilight  he  saw  them  trudging  home,  bent 
under  the  loaded  baskets  —  while  the  men, 
carrying  only  a  mattock  or  a  scythe,  smoking 
their  porcelain-bowled  pipes,  plodded  leisurely 
behind  them.  When  he  reached  his  pension 
he  was  startled  —  and  at  first  he  probably 
blushed  —  to  see  his  heavy  trunk  loaded  on 
the  back  of  a  housemaid,  who  carried  it  up 
three  or  four  flights  of  stairs  to  his  room.  And 
so  he  never  became  quite  accustomed  to  the 
sight  of  a  woman  and  dog  harnessed  together, 
drawing  a  cart  of  milk  cans  and  stopping  from 
house  to  house,  while  the  husband  delivered 
the  milk  to  his  customers.  "We  have  never 
taken  quite  the  same  view  of  women  that  you 
Americans  do,"  Bismarck  said  to  an  American. 
But  after  all,  the  traveler  of  three-  or  four- 
score years  ago  generally  accepted  the  un- 
pleasant or  distressing  conditions  in  a  foreign 
country  as  part  of  the  landscape  for  which  he 
was  not  responsible;  and  his  impression  of 
Germany,  as  he  saw  it  on  the  surface,  was  of  a 
widespread,  stolid  contentment  and  of  a  sort 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGE?  19 

of  bovine  comfort.  The  literacy  of  the  com- 
mon people  surprised  him ;  as  well  it  might,  for 
his  bootblack  had  studied  Greek  and  his  cabby- 
read  Hegel,  and  even  the  peasant  swains  and 
lassies  quoted  Heine's  love  lyrics  at  each  other: 
at  least,  he  heard  such  statements  from  the 
intellectuals  with  whom  he  associated.  The 
intellectuals  themselves  not  merely  enjoyed 
music  —  it  was  as  indispensable  to  their  daily 
life  as  books  were.  Every  one  in  the  family 
sang  or  played,  and  to  attend  concerts  and 
the  opera  was  not  a  luxury,  to  be  indulged 
in  sparingly,  but  a  necessary,  to  be  taken  as 
regularly  as  one's  food. 

Foreign  students,  when  they  went  home, 
bearing  their  doctors'  diplomas  like  Olympic 
garlands,  were  the  most  enthusiastic  praisers 
of  German  life.  They  forgot  the  unrestrained 
drinking  and  open  dissoluteness  which  every 
student  was  expected  to  indulge  in ;  but  they 
remembered  with  gratitude  their  great  obliga- 
tions to  their  professors  and  the  kindness  of 
the  professors'  families;  perhaps,  also,  tlieir 


20     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

flirtations  with  flaxen-haired  Dorotheas.  Ma- 
turer  observers  described  the  Germans  as  a 
rather  slow,  heavy  people,  industrious,  not 
disguising  their  self-esteem,  taking  all  sub- 
jects (humor  included)  with  scientific  seri- 
ousness, sentimental,  romantic  and  doctri- 
naire. And  since  their  manners  were  crude,  it 
was  assumed  that  the  Germans  must  be  hon- 
est ;  it  being  a  popular  fallacy  of  long  standing 
everywhere  that  rustic  uncouthness  and  ignor- 
ance of  the  ways  of  the  world  bespeak  native 
innocence  and  virtue.  So,  by  an  amusing 
twist  of  induction,  bad  manners  or  none  are 
accepted  as  outward  signs  of  inward  grace. 

The  non-Prussians  did  not  appear  war- 
loving  :  on  the  contrary,  while  each  State  kept 
up  an  army,  this  seemed  less  with  a  view  to 
make  war  than  to  provide  an  imposing  display 
at  parades  and  public  ceremonies,  and  to  give 
the  nobles  something  to  do.  The  little  town 
of  Weimar  filled  a  much  larger  space  in  the 
thoughts  and  enthusiasm  of  those  Germans 
than  did  the  entire  great  Kingdom  of  Prussia; 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGE?  21 

and  although  Weimar  had  become  only  a 
whispering  gallery  for  memories  of  Goethe  and 
Schiller  and  their  friends,  it  was  the  Mecca  to 
which  Germans  and  foreigners  made  their 
pilgrimage.  And  other  quiet  towns  —  Jena, 
Gottingen,  Heidelberg,  Bonn  —  enjoyed  a 
reputation  for  intellectual  leadership  in  com- 
parison with  which  militarist  pride  still 
seemed  second  rate,  if  not  vulgar.  Down  be- 
yond 1870,  the  Germans  placed  Goethe  far 
above  Frederick  the  Great  as  the  exponent  of 
the  highest  German  ideals. 

The  outside  world  thought  of  the  non-Prus- 
sians, therefore,  not  as  a  race  of  fighters,  but  of 
thinkers,  scholars,  visionaries,  fed  on  pigmeat 
and  beer,  careful  tradesmen,  docile  peasants, 
and  masterful  musicians.  So  conspicuous  was 
the  visionary  trait  in  them  that  until  the  mid- 
dle of  the  century  the  Germans  regarded  them- 
selves as  irresolute.  "Is  Germany  Hamlet?" 
—  a  question  asked  by  one  of  their  popular 
writers  in  the  forties  —  was  repeated  and  seri- 
ously discussed.  Had  excess  of  thought  para- 


22     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

lyzed  the  will  to  act?  The  political  ineptitude 
of  the  non-Prussian  States  seemed  to  spring 
from  an  enfeebled  will;  and  those  States,  after 
submitting  with  comparatively  little  resent- 
ment to  the  hegemony  of  Austria,  passed  with 
mixed  emotions  under  the  control  of  Prussia. 
Not  until  the  Prussian  will  energized  them  did 
the  non- Prussian  Germans  loom  up  as  Moloch 
worshipers,  thirsting  for  world-empire. 

I  wish  to  seek  the  sources  of  that  meta- 
morphosis; to  discover  how  far  it  was  due  to 
the  imposing  of  the  vastly  more  dynamic  Prus- 
sian will  on  the  German,  and  how  far  to  the 
calling  back  to  life  of  certain  atavistic  passions 
common  to  the  ancestors  of  Teutonic  stock. 
When  a  middle-aged  man,  burly  and  gruff  but 
at  heart  not  cruel,  who  has  led  outwardly  a 
rather  commonplace  yet  respected  life,  and 
has  shown  marked  talents  for  several  high 
objects,  suddenly  professes  fiendish  principles 
and  proceeds  to  carry  them  out  with  a  deliri- 
ous enjoyment,  we  turn  to  his  family  record 
for  earlier  maniacal  outbursts.    Alienists,  no 


REALITY  OR  MIRAGE?  23 

longer  believing  that  Cains  develop  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  consult  heredity.  Who 
can  set  a  limit  to  the  longevity  of  atavism? 
Seeds  of  corn  taken  from  an  Egyptian  tomb, 
and  planted  now,  germinate  after  four  thou- 
sand years :  may  it  be  that  ferocious  instincts, 
which  flourished  in  savage  forerunners,  can 
revive  and  overcome  their  descendants  after 
the  lapse  of  many  generations  ? 

The  reader  may  cherish  a  still  more  glowing 
recollection  of  Germany  than  this  which  I 
have  outlined ;  if  he  does  —  and  he  may  well 
find  reasons  for  it  —  he  will  feel  with  increased 
amazement  the  dark  contrast  between  past 
and  present. 


CHAPTER    III 

ATAVISM 

"From  these  old-German  gloomy  times,"  said  Goethe, 
"we  can  obtain  as  little  as  from  the  Servian  songs,  and 
similar  barbaric  popular  poetry.  Wc  can  read  it  and  be 
interested  about  it  for  a  while,  but  merely  to  cast  it  aside, 
and  let  it  lie  behind  us.  Generally  speaking,  a  man  is  quite 
sufficiently  saddened  by  his  own  passions  and  destiny,  and 
need  not  make  himself  more  so  by  the  darkness  of  a  bar- 
baric past.  He  needs  enlightening  and  cheering  influences, 
and  should  therefore  turn  to  those  eras  in  art  and  literature 
during  which  remarkable  men  obtained  perfect  culture,  so 
that  they  were  satisfied  with  themselves,  and  able  to  im- 
part to  others  the  blessings  of  their  culture." 

EcKERMANN,  Conversations y  October  3,  1828,  p.  327. 

WHAT  of  the  German  Cain  who  sud- 
denly arose  at  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century,  gigantic,  merciless,  mad 
with  the  purpose  of  slaying  the  small  and  fee- 
ble, of  subduing  the  powerful  whose  spoils  he 
coveted,  of  shattering  the  civilization  which 
embodies  the  cumulative  ideals  of  three  thou- 
sand years,  and  of  setting  up  his  own  civiliza- 
tion in  its  stead? 


ATAVISM  25 

The  Goths  and  Vandals  and  Huns  who  peo- 
pled Germany  early  in  the  Christian  era,  were  ./ 
as  unqualified  Barbarians  as  Apache  Indians. 
They  had  anjnsatiable_appetite  for  war;  and  "t 
this  was  whetted  when  they  came  into  conflict 
with  the  Romans,  because  by  war  alone  could 
they  defend  themselves  and  then  make  their 
inroads  into  the  crumbling  Roman  Empire 
and  secure  its  wealth.  Even  after  they  gained 
the  mastery  and  had  mixed  their  blood  freely 
with  that  of  the  decadent  peoples  which  Rome 
once  swayed,  they  kept  to  an  extraordinary 
degree  the  traits  which  dominated  their  ances- 
tors when  history  first  describes  them.  One  of 
^.  those  traits,  blood-thirstiness,  crops  out  at 
intervals  during  all  their  subsequent  annals,  as 
surely  as  pieriodic  dipsomania  recurs  to  mad- 
den its  victim.  The  beheading  by  Charle- 
magne of  a  multitude  of  Saxons  at  Verden 
was  one  manifestation  of  it ;  internecine  war, 
accompanied  by  incredible  horrors  and  pro- 
longed during  thirty  years,  was  another;  th^ 
devastation  o£Belgium_aii(^^ 


26    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

France  in  1914  was  the  latest.  At  the  smell  of 
blood,  the  Furor  Tcutonicus,  proverbial  for  its 
wildness,  has  always  been  kindled. 

Among  the  German  Barbarians  a  spirit  of 
vassalage  also  appears  in  the  earliest  accounts 
we  have  of  them.  **The  chief  fights  for  vic- 
tory," says  Tacitus;  "his  vassals  fight  for  their 
chief.  If  their  native  state  sinks  into  the  sloth 
of  prolonged  peace  and  repose,  many  of  its 
noble  youths  voluntarily  seek  those  tribes 
which  are  waging  some  war:  both  because  in- 
action is  odious  to  their  race,  and  because  they 
win  renown  more  readily  in  the  midst  of  peril, 
and  cannot  maintain  a  numerous  following 
except  by  violence  and  war.  . .  .  Nor  are  they 
as  easily  persuaded  to  plough  the  earth  and  to 
wait  for  a  year's  produce,  as  to  challenge  an 
enemy  and  earn  the  honor  of  wounds.  Nay, 
they  actually  think  it  tame  and  stupid  to  ac- 
quire by  the  sweat  of  toil  what  they  might 
win  by  their  blood.'*  ^ 

»  Tacitus,  Germania,  chap,  xiv  (Church  and  Brodribb*s 
translation). 


ATAVISM  27 

Far  from  resenting  vassalage,  the  Germans 
rejoiced  in  it:  and  in  due  time  this  spirit  de- 
veloped into  Feudalism,  the  highest  political 
conception  which  the  Teutons  have  yet  been 
able  to  devise.  Elaborated  a  thousand  years 
ago,  it  expressed  so  clearly,  so  frankly,  so  com- 
pletely the  Teutonic  ideal,  that  in  spite  of 
changing  outward  conditions,  it  reappears  to- 
day, under  different  name  and  outward  dis- 
guise, as  the  utmost  aim  of  the  Germans. 

Feudalism  classified  society  into  layers  as 
rigidly  as  the  steps  of  a  pyramid  rise  from  the 
base  to  the  apex:  at  the  bottom,  slaves  and 
serfs;  at  the  top,  the  monarch.  Except  at  the 
two  extremes,  the  occupants  of  each  layer  not 
only  looked  up  to  those  above  them,  but 
looked  down  on  those  beneath ;  and  the  satis- 
faction of  looking  down  more  than  compen- 
sated for  the  irksomeness  of  looking  up.  The 
only  liberty  the  German  really  coveted  was 
the  liberty  of  being  and  doing  on  his  social 
plane  just  what  every  other  dweller  on  that 
plane  was  and  did.  The  habit  of  looking  up 


28    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

intensified  his  innate  submissiveness  —  a  sub- 
missiveness  expressed  in  Feudal  terms  by  the 
loyalty  of  man  to  master,  of  vassal  to  lord. 
When  he  came  to  regard  the  monarch,  it  was 
with  a  reverence,  unreasoning  and  absolute, 
which  worshipers  in  other  lands  reserved  for 
the  Deity. 

As  the  control  of  the  monarch  slackened, 
until  it  became  hardly  more  than  a  political 
theory,  the  power  of  his  chief  vassals  increased 
and  they  in  turn  aspired  to  be  absolute 
monarchs  in  their  several  spheres,  —  princes, 
dukes,  marquises,  counts,  —  each  holding  te- 
naciously his  independence,  and  each  receiv- 
ing from  his  subjects  the  worship  they  had 
once  paid  to  the  supreme  sovereign.  Germany 
was  split  up  into  many  states,  large  and  small, 
whose  quarrels,  whose  striving  for  predomi- 
nance, whose  dynastic  rivalries  comprise  an 
unedifying  history  for  several  centuries.  We 
cannot  understand  the  German  Reformation 
itself  if  we  look  upon  it  simply  as  the  effort  of  a 
new  religion  to  supplant  an  old  one:  we  must 


ATAVISM  29 

know  how  far  political  or  family  ambition 
caused  each  German  ruler  to  cling  to  the  old 
or  to  espouse  the  new. 

Throughout  this  long  evolution  from  Ro- 
man to  recent  times,  amid  all  changes,  the  two 
/traits  which  I  have  called  blood-thirstiness  and  )_X- 
submissiveness  persisted.  Wherever  the  Ger-  L^ 
mans  fought,  they  fought  with  a  savage  relish 
of  fighting,  and  they  never  lost  the  instinct  / 
'  which  made  them  accept  docilely  orders  from  / 
above.  Slow,  stolid,  patient,  persevering,  they 
plodded  on.  Even  as  late  as  the  eighteenth 
century  they  seemed  almost  to  stagnate;  no 
effective,  unifying  control  bound  the  Pumper- 
nickel States  together;  and  as  the  princelings 
lacked  initiative,  their  subjects  could  not  sup- 
ply it.  In  civilization,  so  far  as  this  expresses 
itself  in  manners  and  in  social  conduct,  the 
Germans  were  centuries  behind  their  neigh- 
bors in  Western  Europe.  Manners,  indeed, 
seem  always  to  have  been  beyond  their  reach ; 
whether  from  a  native  obtuseness,  which  ren- 
ders them  dull  to  the  charm  of  courtesy  and 


30    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

high  breeding,  or  from  deliberate  Chauvinism, 
which  holds  that,  as  bad  manners  are  German 
and  good  manners  are  foreign,  it  would  be 
unpatriotic  and  an  admission  of  inferiority,  to 
replace  the  indigenous  product  by  an  exotic. 
Now  arose,  however,  a  leader  in  Germany. 
The  House  of  HohenzoUern,  sprung  from 
■  medieval  highwaymen,  —  their  name  suggests 
high-toll-taking  gentry,  —  had  come  down 
from  the  mountains  of  South  Germany  and 
acquired,  by  successive  marriages  or  con- 
quests, possessions  in  the  Rhineland  and  the 
Margravate  of  Brandenburg.  In  due  time  the 
Elector  of  Brandenburg  created  himself  King 
of  Prussia,  the  least  civilized  of  all  the  German 
States.  But  those  men  of  the  Northeast, 
sprung  from  Slavic,  Teutonic,  and  it  may  be 
in  part  from  remote  Asiatic  strains,  kept  the 
traits  which  had  made  their  predecessors  for- 
midable when  the  Christian  era  was  young: 
and  when  one  of  the  most  masterful  of  modem 
despots  awakened  and  drilled  and  led  them, 
they  responded  with  the  wild  joy  possible  only 


ATAVISM  31 

to  those  who  revert,  after  ages  of  disuse,  to 
their  atavistic  propensities. 

Frederick  the  Great  taught  not  only  the 
Prussians,  but  all  other  Germans,  that  the 
strength  and  very  existence  of  a  nation  such 

'  as  he  planned  depend  upon  its  Army.  Virtue, 
literature,  art,  science,  invention,  industry,  are 
subordinate;  the  Army  is  indispensable,  su- 

^'preme.  "Righteousness,"  said  Solomon,  "ex- 
alteth  a  nation."  The  only  exaltation  which 
Frederick  relied  upon  or  preached  was  that 
of  military  Might.  Frederick  had  no  scruples, 
and  being  backed  by  a  sufficient  force  of  Pom- 
eranian grenadiers,  he  did  not  need  them.  He 
was  perfidious,  he  robbed,  he  persecuted,  he 
lied;  but  as  his  Army  was  stronger  than  that 
of  his  adversaries  he  prospered.  He  laughed 
at  the  suggestion  that  the  Divine  Vengeance 
would  repay  the  wicked.  Had  he  not  stolen 
Silesia?  Had  he  not  joined  in  vivisecting  Po- 
land? If  Divine  Vengeance  slept  on  while 
he  was  perpetrating  such  crimes,  it  must  be 
either  a  myth  or  a  nonentity;  and  as  Frederick 


32     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

respected  realities  only,  an  absentee  avenger, 
or  a  God  whose  traces  were  only  dimly  discov- 
erable in  the  Old  Testament,  had  no  terrors 
for  him. 

The  Hohenzollerns  who  succeeded  Frederick 
were  brutish,  but  this  would  not  have  mat- 
tered if  they  had  been  competent.  The  Prus- 
sian Army  deteriorated.  Napoleon  humbled 
Germany  and  stamped  on  its  map  the  names 
of  three  great  French  victories,  Jena,  Eylau 
and  Friedland.  Then  came  the  uprising,  when 
at  Leipsic  the  Germans,  assisted  by  the  Rus- 
sians, Austrians,  Bavarians,  Swedes,  and  Brit- 
ish, broke  Napoleon's  power.  After  Waterloo, 
they  enjoyed  again  independence  from  foreign 
dictation,  dearer  to  them  than  internal  liberty. 
And  yet  the  seeds  of  Liberty  which  the  French 
Republic  sowed  throughout  Europe  sprang  up 
during  the  next  decades  and  they  burst  into 
brief  flowering,  in  the  revolution  of  1848-49. 
Even  in  Prussia,  the  masses  rose  to  secure 
constitutional  freedom,  and  frightened  Prince 
William  into  an  ignominious  flight.  Presently 


ATAVISM  33 

Reaction  triumphed:  the  Liberals  were  de- 
feated ;  their  leaders  either  fled  to  America  or 
were  shot;  the  very  name  of  Liberty  was 
silenced. 

And  now  a  Prussian  greater  than  Frederick 
rose  up  to  steady  Prussia's  shaky  nerves,  to 
make  Prussia  mistress  of  Germany  and  Ger- 
many arbitress  of  Europe.  To  these  ends  Bis- 
marck revived  the  Army  as  the  necessary 
material  weapon ;  but  he  relied  also  upon  Di- 
plomacy, which  he  practiced  with  no  more 
scruples  than  Machiavelli  taught  his  Prince  to 
observe.  By  guile  he  trumped  up  a  pretext  for 
dismembering  Denmark ;  by  craft  he  inveigled 
Austria  to  join  in  that  crime;  by  cunning  he 
then  forced  Austria  to  fight  for  their  common 
spoil;  by  the  falsified  Ems  dispatch  he  infuri- 
ated France  into  declaring  the  war  on  Prussia 
which  he  had  been  secretly  instigating  for 
years.  These  were  the  methods  by  which  he 
created  the  German  Empire :  this  was  the  im- 
perious statesman  whom  the  Germans  revere. 
Fit  is  it  that  the  Prussian  ideal  should  have 


34    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

been  embodied  in  Frederick  the  Great  and  in 
Bismarck  —  men  whose  genius  would  have 
had  no  play  unless  the  millions  of  Germans 
whom  they  mastered  had  been  living  on  a 
moral  level  where  such  methods  were  accepted 
as  ideal. 

Over  against  Frederick  and  Bismarck  let  us 
set  two  incarnations  of  American  ideals, — 
George  Washington,  the  contemporary  of 
Frederick,  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  con- 
temporary of  Bismarck.  They,  too,  wrought 
to  create  a  nation  and  to  preserve  and  unify  it 
—  but  their  work  was  modern ;  their  principle 
was  Liberty;  their  methods  were  moral  and 
humane:  whereas  Frederick  might  have  been 
the  twin  of  Gaiseric,  the  Vandal,  and  Bis- 
marck, the  brother  of  Brennus,  the  Gaul. 
"Fae  victis!  "  "Woe  to  the  conquered!" 
Brennus  shouted  as  he  threw  his  sword  into 
the  scales  on  which,  in  B.C.  389,  the  Romans 
were  heaping  their  ransom.  "  Fae  victis!''  was 
Bismarck's  motto,  when  he  extorted  his  in- 
demnity from  strangled  France  in  a.d.  1871. 


ATAVISM  35 

Twenty-three  centuries  separated  Brennus 
from  Bismarck,  but  the  Prussian  ideal  had 
not  advanced  beyond  that  of  the  Barbarian 
Gaul. 

Bismarck  saw,  however,  that  something 
more  than  a  large  army,  magnificently  drilled, 
would  be  needed  to  maintain  Prussian  ascend- 
ancy in  the  German  Empire.  Although  he  re- 
garded readiness  for  war  as  undebatable,  he 
was  too  adept  a  statesman  not  to  resent  a 
little  the  assumption  of  the  militarists  that  the 
State  must  be  organized  to  serve  the  will  of  the 
Army,  and  that  the  Army  must  be  called  in  to 
settle  every  international  dispute.  Bismarck 
knew  that  in  his  hands  Diplomacy,  without 
shedding  a  drop  of  blood,  had  won  campaigns 
hardly  less  important  to  Prussia  than  those  of 
Sadowa  or  Sedan.  Why  resort  to  a  surgical 
operation  at  every  moment,  when  the  pharma- 
copoeia of  Diplomacy  —  bread  pills,  perhaps 
even  hypnotism  or  a  little  poison  —  would 
serve .? 

The  Teutonic  lust  for  war  having  been  de- 


36    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

veloped  to  an  unprecedented  degree,  Bismarck 
now  set  about  evoking  the  spirit  of  vassalage 
—  that  other  immemorial  Teutonic  heirloom. 
Responding  to  modern  conditions,  this  took 
the  form  of  a  capacity  for  obedience  and  a  sub- 
missiveness  to  discipline  unexampled  among 
any  civilized  race  into  whose  ears  the  word 
Liberty  had  ever  been  whispered. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MANIPULATING  TEUTONIC  TRAITS 

Seest  thou  a  man  wise  in  his  own  conceit?  There  is  more 
hope  of  a  fool  than  of  him.  Proverbs,  xxvi,  12. 

UNIVERSAL  military  service  not  only 


A 


standardized  German  experience,  by 
subjecting  all  German  men  during  their  im- 
pressionable years  to  the  same  sort  of  life  and 
to  a  uniform  drill,  but  it  also  deepened  in  them 
that  atavistic  craving  for  discipline,  and  that 
capacity  for  obedience,  which  made  them  both 
obsequious  towards  those  above  them  and 
insolent  towards  those  below.  They  lacked 
initiative:  but  they  were  patient,  thorough, 
easily  satisfied  if  they  had  sufficient  sausage 
and  beer  for  their  stomachs  and  music  for  their 
ears.  These  Teutonic  masses,  which  resemble 
in  so  many  points  the  Chinese  rather  than  any 
European  race,  were  slowly  organized  into  a 
machine  as  vast  as  Germany  itself. 
V  In  industry,  agriculture,  and  commerce  dis- 


38    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

cipline  similar  to  that  in  the  Army  was  estab- 
lished. Education  came  under  the  iron  rule. 
The  State  subsidized  the  opera  houses  and  the- 
atres. There  was  no  art,  but  there  were  many- 
painters  and  sculptors  who  looked  to  official 
patrons  for  recognition.  When  the  site  of  Ber- 
lin is  again  a  wilderness  for  four-footed  wolves 
and  wild  boars,  the  elephantine  monstrosities 
which  William  II  set  up  in  the  Siegesallee,  to 
glorify  his  HohenzoUern  forerunners,  may 
remain  to  enlighten  posterity  as  to  the  artistic 
sense  of  the  Prussians  when  they  decided  to 
go  forth  and  subjugate  the  world.  The  State 
Church  had  long  been  fossilized :  in  the  Roman 
Church  the  Jesuits  flourished. 

Little  by  little  the  university  professors, 
some  through  blandishments,  some  through 
rebukes  and  snubs,  some  by  their  own  undis- 
guised preference,  became  a  wheel  of  the  State 
machine.  The  professorial  class,  bred  for  the 
most  part  from  the  bourgeoisie ,  inherited  the  in- 
born German  reverence  for  the  titled  classes, 
and  its  members  were  easily  flattered  by  the 


TEUTONIC  TRAITS  39 

bestowal  of  the  Red  Eagle  or  by  the  call  to 
a  chair  at  Berlin,  and  many  a  waverer  seems 
to  have  been  won  over  by  a  few  condescending 
remarks  from  the  Kaiser.  Men  formerly  re- 
nowned for  their  independence  now  spoke  the 
words  they  were  expected  to  speak,  and  de- 
voted their  carefully  trained  intellects  to  dis- 
covering and  proclaiming  reasons  for  idolizing 
a  regime  which  they  had  once  abhorred.  The 
deliberate  perversion  of  the  German  universi- 
ties by  the  Kaiser  dealt  a  blow  to  the  honor 
and  scientific  prestige  of  German  professors 
from  which  they  cannot  soon  recover.  Poster- 
ity will  judge  them  as  it  judges  the  Inquisitors 
who  did  the  bidding  of  Philip  11.  On  which  the 
heavier  blame,  the  corrupter,  or  those  who 
eagerly  allowed  themselves  to  be  corrupted? 
Only  one  element  in  Germany,  the  Socialists, 
threatened  for  a  brief  time  to  accept  no  recon- 
ciliation with  the  Imperial  Despotism.  Their 
chief  prophet,  Marx,  it  should  never  be  for- 
gotten, had  been  obliged  years  earlier  to  seek 
shelter  for  his  life  and  freedom  for  his  utter- 


40    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

ances  in  England  —  England,  hated  by  Ger- 
man Junkers  and  war-maniacs,  not  to  mention 
Bismarck,  the  colossal  Junker,  and  William  II, 
the  son  of  an  English  mother.  Bismarck  first 
tried  persecution  on  the  Socialists,  and  passed 
laws  against  them  not  less  frightful  than  those 
which  the  Spanish  Torquemada  enforced 
against  heretics ;  but  when  he  saw  the  Social- 
ists thrive  under  persecution,  he  adopted  other 
tactics.  He  turned  the  flank  of  the  Socialist 
movement  by  introducing  a  system  which 
made  Socialism  dependent  on  the  State.  So 
the  last  organ  which  might  possibly  have 
served  for  whatever  minority  in  Germany 
cherished  Democratic  or  at  least  non-despotic 
ideals,  was  mitred  into  the  despotic  machine. 
Army  and  Navy,  the  Court,  the  far-reaching 
commercial  and  industrial  interests,  the  banks, 
the  press,  the  Church,  the  teachers  and  pro- 
fessors, the  subsidized  steamship  lines,  the 
railways,  the  Krupp  factories,  the  Socialists, 
worked  together  as  co-ordinate  if  not  co-equal 
parts  of  the  State. 


TEUTONIC  TRAITS  41 

In  theory  this  State  was  an  abstraction  ex- 
isting "above  Society  or  the  individual"  — 
Germany,  the  Fatherland  of  all  Germans,  the 
ideal  to  which  every  German  should  conse- 
crate himself;  and  the  world  will  long  marvel 
at  the  cunning  by  which  the  small  Ring,  which 
invented  and  worked  this  stupendous  machine, 
caused  the  various  parts  of  it  to  believe  that 
they  were  each  serving  an  ideal,  when  they 
were  really  serving  that  Ring.  The  real  State 
was  no  abstraction :  it  was  the  Kaiser,  the  mili- 
tary clique,  the  Junker  aristocracy,  and  their 
counterparts  in  other  German  proyinces. 

The  German  nation,  obedient  to  the  point 
of  servility,  seldom  questioned  what  it  was 
ordered  to  believe.  If  a  few  centrifugal  per- 
sons ventured  to  criticize,  they  were  quickly 
jailed.  But  the  millions  accepted  their  lot 
more  than  gladly,  because  they  were  convinced 
that  the  German  Empire  surpassed  all  others, 
and  that  the  Germans  —  that  is,  themselves 
—  were  superior  to  any  other  race,  past  or 
present. 


42     GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

A  spindle  is  but  a  spindle,  though  it  work  in 
the  largest  mill  in  the  world;  but  the  most 
insignificant  German  seemed  to  swell  with  the 
largeness  of  the  entire  German  Empire.  Self- 
conceit  is  an  attribute  of  children  and  savages, 
in  whom  naivete  somewhat  softens  its  repul- 
siveness.  We  are  inclined  to  see  only  humor 
when  a  child  or  a  Polynesian,  out  of  his  nar- 
row experience,  speaks  boastfully.  Men  of 
genius,  and  especially  men  who  imagined 
without  sufficient  warrant  that  they  had  ge- 
nius, have  also  often  been  puffed  up  with  self- 
esteem  :  but  even  among  them  the  old  fashion 
has  changed,  and  they  usually  simulate  mod- 
esty though  they  have  it  not.  In  a  period  like 
the  Renaissance,  when  individualism  ran  riot 
and  collapsed  in  hysteria,  egotistic  vanity 
flourished  naked  and  unabashed. 

One  sign  of  a  civilized  nature,  however,  is 
self-knowledge;  and  self-knowledge  teaches 
either  an  individual  or  a  State  that  there  are 
other  individuals  and  other  States,  very  dif- 
ferent, it  may  be,  but  possessing  qualities  as 


TEUTONIC  TRAITS  43 

excellent  as  those  of  their  rivals.  Difference 
does  not  necessarily  imply  inferiority;  nor  is 
self-reverence  to  be  confounded  with  conceit. 
We  should  love  our  country  and  should  be 
prepared  to  sacrifice  our  lives  at  the  call  of 
patriotism;  but  never  should  this  love  mislead 
us  into  thinking  that  ours  is  the  only  coun- 
try, or  the  best.  True  patriotism  is  rather  a 
passion  like  that  which  we  feel  for  our  family 
and  friends,  and  no  more  depends  on  geo- 
graphic or  economic  externals  than  the  love 
of  a  child  for  its  mother  depends  upon  her 
beauty  or  her  wealth. 

Self-esteem  has  been  so  salient  a  character- 
istic of  the  Teutons,  and  especially  of  the  Prus- 
sians, since  the  earliest  times,  that  we  may 
assume  it  to  be  innate  in  them.  Perhaps  it  was 
sharpened  when  as  Barbarians  they  swarmed 
into  the  civilization  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
They  had  no  great  cities,  no  marble  temples, 
no  Senate  houses,  no  towering  and  luxurious 
baths;  and  so  they  pretended  to  scorn  them, 
and  to  magnify  their  own  barbaric  dwellings 


4^    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

and  manners  and  customs.  At  any  rate,  their 
conceit  survived  every  vicissitude. 

The  forays  which  the  medieval  German 
kings  made  recurrently  into  Italy  did  not,  by 
introducing  the  Germans  to  peoples  more  civ- 
ilized than  themselves,  suggest  to  them  that 
their  own  ways  and  natures  could  be  improved 
upon.  Even  the  Reformation,  which  promised 
at  the  outset  to  give  Germany  not  only  leader- 
ship, but  really  close  relations  with  the  other 
Powers,  soon  became  local,  having  in  each 
country  its  peculiar  form  and  special  aims ;  so 
that  the  German  States,  disunited,  discordant, 
dull,  fell  back  into  that  parochial  frame  of 
mind  in  which  egotism  flourishes.  It  is  a  nice 
question  whether  egotism  is  more  insufferable 
in  those  who  are  down  or  those  who  are  up; 
the  Prussians  were  equally  arrogant,  whether 
in  victory  or  in  defeat. 

Frederick  the  Great  sent  to  France  for  exem- 
plars of  civilized  wit  and  manners;  he  spoke 
French,  he  wrote  French;  but  his  loyal  sub- 
jects never  took  this  as  a  hint  that  they  were 


V 


TEUTONIC  TRAITS  45 

less  civilized  than  the  French,  and  Frederick 
himself  did  not  object  to  their  dulness  and 
bad  manners  so  long  as  they  furnished  him 
the  docile  soldiei^  J!r»d  bureaucrats  whom  he 
needed. 

We  can  hardly  lay  too  njich  stress  on  the 
German  self-conceit  as  an  important  element 
in  bringing  Germany  to  the  condition  where 
she  would  embark  exultingly  in  the  Atrocious 
War.  After  1870,  a  modest  Prussian  would 
have  been  an  anachronism.  The  Empire  stood 
at  the  head  of  Europe;  its  scholars  led  the 
world.  It  extended  applied  science,  not  only 
into  the  larger  domain  of  industry,  but  into 
the  concerns  of  daily  life.  It  perfected,  piece 
by  piece,  the  immense  machine,  of  which  the 
Kaiser  held  the  throttle.  And  when  the  word 
went  forth  from  above  that  the  Germans  were 
the  Chosen  People,  before  whom  a  destiny  of 
illimitable  grandeur  opened,  hardly  a  German 
skeptic  challenged  that  announcement,  which 
merely  confirmed  what  each  of  them  and  his 
ancestors  had  taken  for  granted,  since  Her- 


46    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

mann  vanquished  the  Romans  in  the  Teuto 
burg  forest.  To  keep  playing  on  the  chord  of 
egotism,  which  set  every  Teuton  heart  vibrat- 
ing, was  the  obvious  policy  of  the  Imperial 
Ring. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   KAISER  AND  GOTT  PARTNERSHIP 

He  created  Gott  in  his  own  image. 

BUT  for  the  presence  of  William  II,  the 
ambition  of  the  Imperial  Ring  might 
have  waited  long  before  it  embarked  recklessly 
on  a  world-war  in  order  to  gratify  its  ambition. 
We  cannot  yet  say  —  perhaps  posterity  will 
never  be  able  to  determine  —  how  far  the 
Kaiser  was  unwittingly  the  tool  of  the  Ring 
and  how  far  he  shaped  it  to  his  own  purposes. 
At  least  we  may  be  sure  that  the  Ring  would 
have  thwarted  him  unless  it  had  found  him 
satisfactory.  Had  he  attempted  to  establish  a 
free  government,  for  instance,  his  path  would 
have  been  blocked  by  Junkers;  or  if  he  had 
acceded  to  the  proposal  of  the  other  great 
Powers  to  restrict  armament,  he  would  not 
have  been  popular  with  the  German  military 
caste. 
But  there  was  never  any  likelihood  that  he 


48    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

would  do  these  or  any  other  Liberal  acts.  He 
was  a  Hohenzollern  through  and  through  — 
one  of  the  Hohenzollerns  on  whose  stem  the 
shoot  of  semi-savage  Prussianism,  grafted 
centuries  before,  had  grown  luxuriantly.  His 
.^iirst  object  was  to  Prussianize  Germany;  his 
next,  to  Germanize  the  world.  Versatile  and 
neurotic,  his  conceit  soon  developed  into  un- 
checked egomania.  At  the  outset,  the  minute 
German  specialists  smiled  when  he  laid  down 
the  law  to  them  in  Biblical  criticism,  or  in 
painting,  in  history,  or  in  army  tactics,  or  in  a 
hundred  other  fields;  but  after  a  while  they 
listened  to  him  gravely,  as  to  Sir  Oracle. 
Their  obsequiousness,  which  cost  them  little, 
brought  them  his  favors  for  themselves  and  his 
backing  for  their  enterprises.  He  Prussianized 
Germany  in  ways  I  have  already  hinted  at, 
until  the  reluctant  Bavarians  or  the  suspicious 
Wiirtembergers  came  to  regard  Imperial  Ger- 
man aggrandizement  as  the  leading  tenet  in 
their  patriotic  creed. 
William's  egomania  revolved  on  two  wheels 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  49 

—  War  and  Statesmanship.  The  achieve- 
ments of  Napoleon  as  a  soldier  and  of  Bis- 
marck as  a  statesman  would  not  let  him  sleep. 
To  the  dire  misfortune  of  Europe,  he  believed 
that  he  united  in  himself  the  genius  of  both 
those  consummate  men :  and  this  he  sought  to 
demonstrate  by  his  acts.  He  chose  a  succes- 
sion of  mediocrities  as  his  Chancellors,  with 
the  result  that  the  policies  pursued  were  his 
policies.  Bismarck  had  advised  Germany  to 
keep  on  friendly  terms  with  Russia  and  with 
England ;  William  antagonized  both  England 
and  Russia  without  any  apparent  compensa- 
tion, and  accustomed  the  German  people  to 
the  idea  that  England  was  an  enemy  that  must 
be  destroyed,  and  Russia  a  peril  that  must  be 
removed.  He  used  France  as  a  pretext  for 
augmenting  the  German  Army,  bullying  her 
to  the  verge  of  desperation,  and  then  saying  in 
substance  to  the  Germans:  'You  see  what 
wicked  people  the  French  are;  how  hate  cor- 
rodes their  hearts;  how  revenge  is  their  ruling 
passion.  I  am  a  man  of  peace,  but  I  shall  not 


so    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

be  able  forever  to  restrain  my  noble  Army 
from  taking  up  the  challenge  of  these  insolent 
braggarts  and  making  an  end  of  them  once 
for  all/ 

*My  noble  Army!'  For  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury that  was  the  Kaiser's  invariable  refrain. 
To  fortify  that  Army  he  bent  all  his  plans.  He 
allowed  military  considerations  to  control  his 
diplomacy.  He  made  the  military  caste,  whose 
truculence  had  long  been  a  by-word,  up- 
permost in  the  Empire;  for  like  Frederick 
the  Great  he  knew  that  the  durability  of  the 
Hohenzollem  dynasty  rested  on  the  Army. 
He  need  not  fear  Socialists  and  Democrats, 
Anarchists  and  plain  Liberals,  so  long  as  he 
had  an  Army  which  at  his  bidding  would 
shoot  down  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  thousand 
of  them.  Having  secured  safety  at  home,  he 
could  turn  to  his  plan  for  conquest  abroad. 

Diplomacy  conducted  by  men  infected  by 
the  itch  of  militarism  cannot  fail  to  be  dena- 
tured. A  manufacturing  house  which  sent  out 
a  prize-fighter  instead  of  a  persuasive  agent  to 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  51 

solicit  orders  and  to  adjust  claims  among  its 
clients  would  soon  lack  customers.  As  the 
Kaiser  fostered  the  Prussian  brand  of  Diplo- 
macy, which  begins  by  bullying  and  proceeds 
through  insults  to  brutality,  he  could  hardly 
have  been  surprised  to  discover,  by  19 10,  that 
Germany  had  no  disinterested  friend  in  the 
world.  Several  governments  were  polite  to  her 
because  they  feared  her;  Austria  was  her  sub- 
missive vassal,  and  Turkey  gave  her  a  bought 
amity,  which  might  at  any  time  be  shifted  to 
a  higher  bidder. 

Listen  to  a  few  passages  of  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  William  II: — ^ 

It  is  the  soldier  and  the  Army,  not  parlia- 
mentary majorities  and  votes,  that  have  welded 
the  German  Empire  together.  My  confidence 
rests  upon  the  Army. 

The  most  important  heritage  which  my  illus- 
trious grandfather  and  father  bequeathed  to  me, 

*  These  quotations  are  taken  from  The  War-Lord^  com- 
piled by  J.  M.  Kennedy.  (New  York:  Duffield  &  Co. 
191 4.)  See  also  The  German  Emperor  as  shown  by  his 
Public  Utterances.  By  C.  Gauss.  (New  York:  Scribners. 
1914.) 


52     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

and  which  I  entered  upon  with  joy  and  pride,  is 
the  Army. 

Wherever  the  German  Eagle  has  thrust  his 
talons  into  a  country,  that  country  is  German 
and  will  remain  German. 

The  problems  which  proved  insoluble  to  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  the  modern  German  Em- 
pire is  in  a  position  to  solve.  The  means  that 
enables  it  to  do  this  is  our  Army. 

Any  opposition  on  the  part  of  Prussian  noble- 
men to  their  King  is  a  monstrosity.  Such  opposi- 
tion can  be  justified  only  when  the  King  leads  it. 

Our  German  people  will  be  the  granite  rock  on 
which  Almighty  God  will  complete  his  building 
of  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

Only  the  German  nation  is  left  to  defend  and 
above  all  to  cultivate  great  conceptions. 

The  soldier  must  not  have  a  will  of  his  own. 
He  must  have  only  one  will,  and  that  will  mine. 

A  ruler  may  be  very  disagreeable,  and  I  will  be 
disagreeable  if  I  think  it  necessary. 

There  is  only  one  master  in  this  country:  I  am 
he,  and  I  will  not  tolerate  another. 

There  is  only  one  law  —  my  law;  the  law 
which  I  myself  lay  down. 

God  will  be  on  our  side  if  ever  our  peaceful 
work  is  interrupted. 

Hurrah  for  the  dry  powder  and  the  sharp 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  53 

sword,  for  the  end  we  have  in  sight  and  the 
forces  we  are  bending  towards  it,  for  the  German 
Army  and  the  General  Staff! 

Proud  of  the  incomparable  discipHne  and  loy- 
alty of  its  Army,  Germany  is  resolved,  without 
in  any  way  threatening  the  rights  of  others,  to 
maintain  its  Army  at  the  degree  of  perfection 
it  thinks  necessary  for  the  defense  of  its  inter- 
ests. 

If  we  have  been  at  peace  for  a  long  time,  we 
owe  our  good  fortune  to  our  well-tried  Army  as 
well  as  to  the  favor  of  the  Almighty. 

The  Army  and  the  Emperor  at  its  head  can 
alone  secure  the  safety  of  the  Empire  and  the 
peace  of  the  world. 

Our  future  lies  upon  the  water.  Imperial 
power  means  sea  power,  and  sea  power  and  im- 
perial power  are  dependent  on  each  other. 

The  best  word  is  a  blow  —  the  Army  and 
Navy  are  the  pillars  of  the  State. 

We  are  the  salt  of  the  earth;  we  must  show 
ourselves  worthy  of  our  great  destiny. 

God  liveth  as  of  old.  Our  great  Ally  still 
reigneth,  the  Holy  God,  who  cannot  suifer  sin 
and  iniquity  to  triumph. 

The  King  of  Kings  calleth  for  volunteers  for 
the  front. 

If  history  should  mention  a  German  world- 


y 


54    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

power,  or  a  Hohenzollcrn  omnlpotency,  we  do 
not  wish  It  to  be  said  that  it  was  obtained  by  the 
point  of  the  sword,  but  by  the  mutual  confidence 
of  nations  striving  for  the  same  ideal. 

To  multiply  these  utterances,  dating  from 
different  years,  would  merely  show  the  Kai- 
ser's fertility  in  putting  the  same  thoughts  in 
various  forms.  The  specimens  quoted  sum  up 
his  creed.  He  admonished  his  German  sub- 
jects, and  announced  to  the  world,  that  he  was 
the  King  of  Kings;  that  he  ruled  by  Divine 
Right ;  that  he  held  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand 
the  life  and  death  of  every  German ;  that  the 
Army,  with  which  he  gradually  associated 
the  Navy,  was  the  supreme  institution  in  the 
Empire;  that  the  Germans  were  the  Chosen 
People,  who  might  look  forward  to  winning 
world-power  and  even  omnipotence ;  that  God 
was  his  Ally,  who  could  be  depended  on  in  case 
of  need  to  promote  Imperial  German  ambi- 
tion. 

The  substance  of  these  doctrines  was  not 
original.  Many  despots,  especially  those  who 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  55 

secretly  dreamed  of  military  expansion,  have 
used  similar  phrases.  The  Jews  were  the 
Chosen  People;  and  so  have  others  declared 
themselves,  with  perhaps  less  justification. 
Autocrats  have  always  assured  their  subjects 
—  when,  indeed,  they  condescended  to  give 
reasons  of  any  kind  —  that  they  enjoyed  a 
monopoly  of  Divine  favor.  Napoleon,  more 
modest  than  the  windy  Prussian,  talked  about 
his  "Star,"  thereby  suggesting  a  sufficiently 
vague  and  imaginative  idea  and  one  less 
shocking  than  "God'*  to  pious  ears. 

William's  references  to  God  reveal  the  bi- 
zarre medley  of  his  moral  nature.  He  did  not 
need  to  go  to  Machiavelli  to  learn  that  a  prince 
should  use  religion  as  an  instrument  for  inten- 
sifying his  subjects'  obedience,  or  as  a  cloak 
to  hide  his  own  designs  against  other  princes. 
William  needed  only  to  turn  to  the  "Confes- 
sions" of  Frederick  the  Great,^  the  Prussian 

^  The  Confessions  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  The  Life  of 
Frederick  the  Great  hy  Heinrich  von  Treitschke.  Edited  by 
D.  Sladen;  Foreword  by  G.  H.  Putnam.  (New  York: 
Putnams.   1915.) 


S6    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Despot  whom  he  most  idolized,  in  order 
to  find  expressed  with  brutal  frankness  the 
diabolical  creed  which  William  himself  has 
practiced. 

Religion  [says  Frederick,  in  the  Second  Morn- 
ing of  his  "Confessions"]  is  absolutely  necessary 
in  a  state.  ...  A  king  must  know  very  little  of 
politics,  indeed,  that  should  suffer  his  subjects  to 
make  a  bad  use  of  it;  but  then  it  would  not  be 
very  wise  in  a  king  to  have  any  religion  himself. 
Mark  well,  my  dear  nephew,  what  I  here  say  to 
you;  there  Is  nothing  that  tyrannizes  more  over 
the  head  and  heart  than  religion;  because  it 
neither  agrees  with  our  passions,  nor  with  those 
great  political  views  which  a  monarch  ought  to 
have.  The  true  religion  of  a  prince  is  his  interest 
and  his  glory.  He  ought,  by  his  royal  station,  to  be 
dispensed  from  having  any  other.  He  may  Indeed 
reserve  outwardly  a  fair  occasional  appearance, 
for  the  sake  of  amusing  those  who  are  about  him, 
or  who  watch  his  motions  and  character. 

If  he  fears  God,  or,  to  speak  as  the  priests  and 
women  do,  if  he  fears  Hell,  like  Louis  XIV  in  his 
old  age,  he  Is  apt  to  become  timorous,  childish, 
and  fit  for  nothing  but  to  be  a  Capuchin.  If  the 
point  Is  to  avail  himself  of  a  favorable  moment 
for  seizing  a  province,  an  army  of  devils,  to 


KAISER  AND  GOTT 


57 


defend  it,  present  themselves  to  his  imagination; 
we  are,  on  that  supposition,  weak  enough  to 
think  it  an  injustice,  and  we  proportion,  in  our 
conscience,  the  punishment  to  the  crime.  Should 
it  be  necessary  to  make  a  treaty  with  other  Pow- 
ers, if  we  remember  that  we  are  Christians,  we 
are  undone;  all  would  be  over  with  us;  we  should 
be  constantly  bubbles.  As  to  war,  it  is  a  trade,  in 
which  any  the  least  scruple  would  spoil  every- 
thing, and,  indeed,  what  man  of  honor  would  ever 
make  war,  if  he  had  not  the  right  to  make  rules 
that  should  authorize  plunder,  fire,  and  carnage  .f* 
I  do  not,  however,  mean  that  one  should  make 
a  proclamation  of  impiety  and  atheism;  but  it 
is  right  to  adapt  one's  thoughts  to  the  rank  one 
occupies.  All  the  popes  who  had  common  sense 
have  held  no  principles  of  religion  but  what 
favored  their  aggrandizement.  It  would  be  the 
silliest  thing  imaginable,  if  a  prince  were  to  con- 
fine himself  to  such  paltry  trifles  as  were  con- 
trived only  for  the  common  people.  Besides,  the 
best  way  for  a  prince  to  keep  fanaticism  out  of 
his  country  is  for  him  to  have  the  most  cool 
indifference  for  religion.^ 

^  The  genuineness  of  Frederick's  Confessions^  or  Matt- 
neeSf  as  they  were  called  in  their  first  French  edition,  has 
been  questioned.  The  passage  quoted,  however,  accords 
with  both  his  views  and  practices. 


58    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

The  man  who  thus  instructed  his  nephew  as 
to  the  use  which  a  king  should  make  of  rehgion 
did  not  take  the  trouble  to  pay  the  tribute 
which  civilized  vice  is  supposed  to  pay  to  vir- 
tue :  how  could  he,  when  he  neither  believed  in 
virtue  nor  had  the  faintest  conception  of  its 
meaning  unless  it  coincided  with  a  despot's 
plans  ?  He  was  no  more  ashamed  of  his  cynical 
treatment  of  the  most  sacred  aspirations  pos- 
sible to  man  than  savages  are  of  their  cere- 
monial orgies  or  their  cannibalism.  He  was 
simply  Prussian,  enunciating  the  Prussian 
ideal,  which,  being  Prussian,  required  no 
excuse. 

Possessing  neither  Frederick's  intellect  nor 
his  thorough-going  contempt  for  mankind, 
William  II  was  soft  enough  to  like  to  appear 
good-natured  on  occasions  when  his  autocracy 
was  not  in  question;  and  even  if  he  had  not 
understood  the  value  of  Gott  as  a  device  for 
keeping  the  people  under,  he  would  probably 
have  continued  to  harp  upon  Gott  in  order  to 
gratify  the  popular  instinct.  When  analyzed, 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  59 

the  Prussian  deity  is  seen  to  be  in  essence 
merely  tribal,  one  of  the  deities  of  the  Teutonic 
mythology  —  a  combination  of  Odin  and  Loki 
—  dressed  in  the  uniform  of  Colonel  of  Pom- 
eranian Grenadiers.  This  Gott,  whom  William 
had  for  a  partner,  seems  in  reality  to  have  been 
William's  double,  who  approved  of  the  Kai- 
ser's policies,  invariably  sided  with  him  in  war 
and  peace,  and,  like  William,  lauded  the  Ger- 
mans as  the  Chosen  People.  Though  their 
reverence  for  the  Kaiser  would  have  sufficed 
to  make  them  obey  his  commands,  they  were 
undoubtedly  stimulated  in  their  zeal  when  he 
told  them  that  Gott  thought  just  as  he  did. 
They  could  neither  see  nor  hear  the  invisible 
partner,  but  the  Kaiser's  reports  of  him  were 
too  definite,  not  to  say  familiar,  for  them  to  be 
skeptical. 

That  William  II's  Gott  should  be  a  pagan  of 
the  old  Germanic  type  was  inevitable.  Two 
generations  of  unparalleled  devotion  to  sci- 
entific research  and  metaphysics  had  left 
Germany  pagan  and  materialist.  The  stirring 


6o    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

of  atavistic  instincts  in  her,  through  the  re- 
discovery by  the  historians  of  medieval  Ger- 
many and  their  magnification  of  the  glories  of 
medieval  Hohenstaufen,  Saxon,  and  Suabian 
monarchs,  turned  German  attention  back  still 
further,  to  the  time  before  Christianity  had 
replaced  their  pagan  religion. 

In  a  passage  of  singularly  imaginative  in- 
sight, the  late  J.  A.  Cramb  surveyed  swiftly 
the  fourteen  centuries  during  which  the  Ger- 
mans called  themselves  Christians.  There 
was,  he  says,  no  real  Christian  spirit  in  their 
hearts.  Their  religion  was  the  religion  of  valor, 
of  war,  of  killing  and  being  killed,  of  making 
physical  courage  the  final  test  of  life,  and  its 
attainment  the  only  aim  worthy  of  men.  But 
Christ  preached  a  different  religion  —  the 
religion  of  righteousness,  of  brotherhood,  of 
self-sacrifice,  and  of  mercy.  The  war  to  which 
he  called  his  followers  was  of  the  spirit,  and 
spiritual  was  the  test  which  he  applied  to  con- 
duct; not  to  kill,  but  to  heal;  not  to  hate,  but 
to  love;  not  to  oppress,  or  cheat,  or  persecute 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  61 

others,  but  to  do  unto  them  as  you  would  be 
done  by  —  those  were  the  ideals  which  Christ 
opposed  to  the  religion  of  Odin,  the  War-God. 
Cramb  puts  into  the  mouth  of  latter-day 
Germany  this  summary:  — 

Judaea  and  Galilee  cast  their  dreary  spell  over 
Greece  and  Rome,  when  Greece  and  Rome  were 
already  sinking  into  decrepitude  and  the  crea- 
tive power  in  them  was  exhausted,  when  weari- 
ness and  bitterness  wakened  with  their  greatest 
spirits  at  day  and  sank  to  sleep  again  with  them 
at  night.  But  Jud^a  and  Galilee  struck  Ger- 
many in  the  splendor  and  heroism  of  her  prime. 
Germany  and  the  whole  Teutonic  people  in  the 
fifth  century  made  the  great  error.  They  con- 
quered Rome,  but,  dazzled  by  Rome's  authority, 
they  adopted  the  religion  and  the  culture  of  the 
vanquished.  Germany's  own  deep  religious  in- 
stinct, her  native  genius  for  religion,  manifested 
in  her  creative  success,  was  arrested,  stunted, 
thwarted.  But  having  once  adopted  the  new 
faith,  she  strove  to  live  that  faith,  and  for  more 
than  thirty  generations  she  has  struggled  and 
wrestled  to  see  with  eyes  that  were  not  her  eyes, 
to  worship  a  God  that  was  not  her  God,  to  live 
with  a  world-vision  that  was  not  her  vision,  and 
to  strive  for  a  heaven  that  was  not  her  heaven. 


62     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

But  struggle  as  she  might,  Germany  found 
Christianity  an  alien  religion.  By  the  Refor- 
mation she  freed  herself  from  it  in  its  most 
rigid  theological  discipline:  and  then  she 
chafed  at  Protestantism.  Her  philosophers, 
from  Kant  to  Nietzsche,  pulled  down  one 
after  another  the  pillars  on  which  rested  what 
remained  of  Christianity.  Nietzsche  freed 
Germany  from  the  last  trammels  of  Christian 
tradition. 

Nietzsche  clears  away  the  "accumulated 
rubbish"  of  twelve  hundred  years  [says  Cramb, 
speaking  for  Germany].  He  attempts  to  set  the 
German  imagination  back  where  it  was  with 
Alaric  and  Theodoric,  fortified  by  the  experi- 
ence of  twelve  centuries  to  confront  the  darkness 
unaided,  unappalled,  triumphant,  great  and 
free.  .  .  .  And  what  is  the  religion,  which,  on  the 
whole,  may  be  characterized  as  the  religion  of 
the  most  earnest  and  passionate  minds  of  young 
Germany? 

In  the  newer  Imperative  ring  the  accents  of  an 
earlier,  greater  prime,  the  accents  heard  by  the 
Scamander,  which  even  at  Chaeronea  did  not  en- 
tirely die  away:  — 


KAISER  AND  GOTT  63 

Ye  have  heard  how  in  old  times  It  was  said, 
Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth;  but  I  say  unto  you,  Blessed  are  the  val- 
iant, for  they  shall  make  the  earth  their  throne. 
And  ye  have  heard  men  say.  Blessed  are  the  poor 
in  spirit;  but  I  say  unto  you,  Blessed  are  the 
great  in  soul  and  the  free  in  spirit,  for  they  shall 
enter  into  Valhalla.  And  ye  have  heard  men  say, 
Blessed  are  the  peacemakers;  but  I  say  unto  you, 
Blessed  are  the  war-makers,  for  they  shall  be 
called,  if  not  the  children  of  Jahve,  the  children 
of  Odin,  who  is  greater  than  Jahve.^ 

Such  is  the  religion,  described  in  flinty 
phrases  by  one  who  more  than  half  believed  in 
it,  which  Germany  has  been  waiting  for  fifteen 
centuries  to  force  upon  the  world  at  the  point 
of  her  sword.^  The  deity  who  presides  over  this 

^  J.  A.  Cramb:  Germany  and  England  (London:  John 
Murray,  1914),  pp.  113,  114,  116,  117. 

2  The  suspicion  that  the  Germans  would  relapse  to 
their  primitive  barbaric  ideals,  has  haunted  more  than  one 
of  their  writers.  Heine  expressed  this  in  a  memorable  pas- 
sage, from  which  these  sentences  are  taken:  "Christianity 
—  and  this  is  its  most  beautiful  service  —  has  subdued  to 
some  extent  that  German  brutal  desire  for  combat,  and  if 
the  restraining  Talisman,  the  Cross,  falls  to  pieces,  then 
the  ferocity  of  the  old  fighters  will  break  out,  the  senseless 


64    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

religion  is  the  Gott  with  whom  William  II  is  in 
partnership. 

BerserkeB  rage,  about  which  the  Northern  poets  say  and 
sing  so  much.  That  Talisman  is  rotten,  and  the  day  will 
come  when  it  will  crumble  away.  Then  the  old  stone  gods 
will  rise  out  of  the  desolate  ruins  and  rub  the  dust  of  a 
thousand  years  from  their  e^s,  and  Thor  will  spring  up 
with  his  giant  hammer  and  dash  to  pieces  the  old  Gothic 
cathedrals."  Heine:  Sdmmtliche  Werke,  vol.  in,  p.  lo8, 
"Religion  und  Philosophic  in  Deutschland."  (1834.) 


CHAPTER  VI 

WILLIAM  THE    PEACEMAKER  ' 

A  certain  prince  of  the  present  time,  whom  it  is  well  not 
to  name,  never  does  anything  but  preach  peace  and  good 
faith,  but  he  is  really  a  great  enemy  to  both. 

Machiavelli,  The  Prince^  xviii.    ' 

WILLIAM  II  became  Emperor  in  1888. 
He  had  nourished  himself  on  the  doc- 
trines and  example  of  Frederick  the  Great. 
The  claim  to  reign  by  Divine  Right,  which 
the  elder  and  the  younger  despot  boasted,  is 
a  growth  of  comparatively  recent  centuries 
among  European  sovereigns,  not  without 
humor.  Stripped  of  its  bombastic  rhetoric,  it 
amounts  simply  to  this :  when  a  monarch  had 
successfully  established  his  power,  by  usurpa- 
tion, by  robbery,  or  by  slaughter,  he  declared 
that  he  was  God's  anointed.  William  both  liked 
the  idea  and  knew  its  potency,  even  among 
a  race  which  was  fast  losing  its  sense  for  the 
Divine  in  everything.  The  Romans,  after  the 


66    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

time  of  Augustus,  sank  into  such  moral  deca- 
dence that  they  went  further:  they  no  longer 
traced  the  lineage  of  their  Emperors  to  a 
divine  ancestor,  but  treated  them  as  gods  in 
the  flesh.  William's  inborn  egomania  was  so 
pronounced  that  he  might  have  found  no 
difficulty  in  believing  himself  a  deity;  but 
while  he  always  spoke  in  his  own  person  as 
Emperor  by  Divine  Right,  he  usually  rein- 
forced his  commands  by  clinching  references 
to  Gott. 

During  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign,  his 
medievalism,  his  continual  harangues  on  his 
own  will  and  perfection,  his  louder  and  louder 
exaltation  of  the  Army,  his  sudden  outbursts 
of  passion,  or  his  diplomatic  indiscretions,  and 
the  growing  frequency  with  which  he  indulged 
in  the  disquieting  amusement  of  rattling  his 
scabbard,  annoyed  and  even  disgusted  a  good 
many  Germans,  especially  those  who  lived 
outside  of  Prussia.  One  bold  critic  published 
a  pamphlet  on  Caligula,  in  which  he  drew 
the  portrait  of  the  mad  Roman  Emperor  so 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER    67 

vividly  that  myriads  of  Germans  saw  in  it 
the  likeness  of  the  divinely  anointed,  neurotic 
Hohenzollern.  The  censors,  however,  soon 
discouraged  criticism  by  clapping  into  prison 
satirists,  editors,  critics,  and  other  doubters  of 
Imperial  Almightiness.  Even  the  most  inno- 
cent could  involuntarily  commit  the  crime  of 
lese-majeste:  for  the  zealous  Prussian  officers 
sniffed  treason  in  trifles.  The  world  laughed 
irreverently  to  see  the  Germans  laced  in  such 
a  strait-jacket  and  expected  that  they  would 
tire  of  William's  despotic  freaks;  but  he,  and 
also  the  Ring,  which  artfully  poured  into  his 
mind  the  suggestions  of  policies  which  he 
supposed  he  originated,  knew  the  Germans 
best,  and  never  doubted  that  they  would 
wear  submissively  the  heaviest  yoke,  how- 
ever restive  they  might  be  under  a  light 
one. 

Foreign  observers,  distrustful  of  William 
from  the  beginning,  were  not  less  repelled  by 
his  hypocritical  praises  of  peace  than  by  his 
sanctimonious  patronizing  of  Gott.  Read  over 


68     GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

his  addresses  and  detect  in  them  now,  if  you 
could  not  when  he  uttered  them,  their  hollow 
note: — 

The  object  of  the  Army  is  to  secure  peace  for 
us,  or  if  peace  is  broken,  to  be  in  a  position  to 
fight  for  it  with  honor. 

I  am  determined  to  keep  peace  with  every  one, 
so  far  as  it  lies  in  my  power. 

The  mighty  German  Army  is  the  mainstay  of 
the  peace  of  Europe. 

Though  the  German  Navy  is  specially  in- 
tended for  the  safeguarding  and  preservation  of 
peace,  it  will,  I  am  confident,  do  its  duty  if  called 
into  action. 

Secure  is  that  peace  which  stands  behind  the 
shield  and  under  the  sword  of  the  German 
Michael. 

I  lend  my  hand  to  any  cause  which  can  help  to 
further  the  great  cause  of  peace. 

I  look  upon  the  peace  of  the  German  people  as 
sacred;  but  it  is  our  duty  to  recognize  from  the 
signs  of  the  times  that  we  must  prepare  to  defend 
ourselves  from  aggression. 

The  peace  of  Europe  is  not  In  danger:  it  rests 
on  foundations  which  are  too  solid  and  firm  to 
be  easily  shaken  by  the  lies  and  calumnies  of 
mischief-makers. 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER     69 

While   the  voluble  William   continued    to 
vociferate  "Peace,  Peace!"  he  plotted  "War, 
War!"  in  his  heart.  .  He  went  on  unceasingly 
to  swell  his  Army,  to  strengthen   its  equip- 
ment, and  above  all  to  encourage  those  who 
were  diffusing  the  militarist  poison  in  every 
German  mind.   As  if  it  were  not  enough  for 
Germans  to  be  taught  that  they  must  be  ready 
against  the  time  when  they  should  go  forth  to 
new  victories  on  land,  William  breathed  into 
them  the  dream  that  they  ought  also  to  dom- 
inate the  sea.  "Our  future  lies  upon  the  wa- 
ter," he  announced,  at  the  opening  of  the  new 
port  of  Stettin  in  1890;  words  listened  to  with 
only  a  passing  wonder,  but  which  prove  how 
early  in  his  career  the  Kaiser  was  coquet- 
ting with  the  temptation  of  world-dominion. 
Thereupon  the  keels  of  the  first  German  war- 
ships were   laid   down;  the  German  Navy 
League  was  organized  to  arouse  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  Empire ;  the  glory  of  embarking  on 
vast  colonial  enterprises  was  preached;  and 
the  ulterior  purpose  which  a  mighty  Navy 


70     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

might  serve  began  to  be  whispered.  By  the 
year  1900  the  toast,  "The  Day,"  was  not  only 
drunk  by  Army  and  Navy  officers  at  their 
mess,  but  was  proposed  and  cheered  at  public 
banquets. 

What  "Day".?  The  day  on  which  the  Ger- 
mans should  meet  and  destroy  the  English 
Navy,  conquer  England,  shatter  the  British 
Empire,  and  inherit  its  wealth.  That  was  the 
aim  every  German  was  taught  to  strive  for; 
and,  since  we  hate  those  whom  we  have  in- 
jured or  plot  to  injure,  the  German  Mendac- 
ity Bureau  circulated  throughout  Germany 
the  belief  that  England,  jealous  of  Germany's 
commercial  success,  intended  to  attack  the 
Fatherland.  So  the  business  of  teaching  ha- 
tred of  England  was  deliberately  carried  on, 
the  black  seeds  being  sown  in  the  minds  of 
little  children  and  watered  and  nurtured  with 
Teutonic  persistence. 

But  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  and 
during  all  those  years  when,  under  the  pre- 
tense that  England  was  going  to  attack  Ger- 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER     71 

many,  Germany  prepared  to  attack  England, 
there  was  no  port  in  the  British  Empire  into 
which  German  merchant  ships  did  not  sail 
unhindered,  no  British  dock  on  which  German 
merchandise  was  not  unloaded  without  dis- 
criminating duties.  The  Germans  boasted, 
and  with  reason,  of  their  industrial  expansion, 
unmatched  either  in  rapidity  or  in  volume; 
they  boasted  that  their  goods  undersold  Brit- 
ish goods  in  London  itself;  they  boasted  that 
they  were  taking  away  trade  from  England  in 
China,  in  the  Far  East  and  in  other  British 
dependencies,  as  well  as  in  other  lands,  to  all 
of  which  they  gained  access  through  British 
ports.  These  boasts  were  founded  on  facts. 
And  yet  the  Germans  declared  almost  in  the 
same  breath  that  British  "NavaKsm"  —  a 
word  they  coined  to  dupe  the  unthinking  — 
prevented  German  industry  from  reaching  a 
market  and  German  commerce  from  having 
its  share  of  the  world's  trade.  In  the  long  Hst 
of  German  lies  few  surpasses  this  in  shame- 
lessness.  It  would  seem  that  to  lie  successfully 


72     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

one  must  be  civilized.  The  German  exercises 
in  this  art  have  the  unconscious  naivete  of  the 
semi-savage,  who  fails  to  perceive  either  that 
he  contradicts  himself,  or  that  his  deceit  is 
patent  to  his  intended  victim. 

The  favorite  German  practice  of  accusing 
the  enemy  of  intending  to  do  what  the  Ger- 
mans themselves  were  on  the  point  of  doing,  is 
another  example  of  this  semi-savage  naivete. 
In  war  they  call  it  an  "offensive  defensive," 
and,  since  war  is  at  best  a  relic  of  barbarism, 
the  trick  has  its  strategic  justification;  but  in 
diplomacy  or  in  politics  its  barbaric  origin 
betrays  it  when  it  is  tried  on  peoples  whose 
standards  are  not  semi-savage.  The  Kaiser 
and  his  Militarist  Ring,  however,  used  it  with 
profit  among  the  Germans  themselves.  When 
they  wished  to  increase  the  Army,  they 
needed  only  to  whisper  that  Russia  was 
threatening  the  Fatherland,  or  that  France, 
stung  by  some  German  insult  into  uttering  a 
fiery  word,  was  growing  dangerous  and  must 
be  guarded  against. 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER    73 

Having  launched  his  naval  policy,  the  Kaiser 
found  England  a  convenient  bogy  for  justi- 
fying the  immense  appropriations  which  his 
plans  of  naval  expansion  required.  And  while 
he  added  cruiser  to  cruiser  and  dreadnought  to 
dreadnought,  and  reached  at  last  the  glory  of 
the  superdreadnought,  he  continued  in  his  ad- 
dresses to  assure  the  world  that  the  mission 
of  the  German  Navy  was  peace.  No  doubt  a 
great  majority  of  the  German  people  believed 
his  assurances;  no  doubt,  also,  they  believed 
that  France  and  Russia  and  now  England, 
either  singly  or  together,  were  evolving  the 
designs  which  the  Imperial  Ring  insinuated 
against  them.  The  German  people  have  been 
trained  too  long  to  take  their  information 
from  above,  to  question  its  veracity. 

To  Prussianize  Germany;  to  keep  the  Ger- 
man military  and  naval  equipment  up  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  excellence;  to  imbue  the  Ger- 
man people,  whose  obedience  was  proved  past 
wavering,  with  such  a  sense  of  their  supremacy 
that  they  would  accept  as  a  matter  of  course 


74    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

the  gospel  that  they  were  to  rule  the  world; 
and  to  proclaim  himself  the  defender  of  peace, 
in  order  the  more  easily  to  mask  his  warlike 
projects  —  this  was  the  work  of  William  II, 
aided  by  his  Militarist  Ring,  during  more  than 
twenty  years  of  his  reign.  In  these  labors, 
patience  stands  out  as  the  conspicuous  trait. 
Hard  must  it  have  been  for  the  innate  auto- 
crat, who,  at  twenty-five,  imagined  himself  as 
being  potentially  a  greater  soldier  than  Na- 
poleon —  no  less !  —  to  wait  one  decade  and 
then  two,  and  well  on  into  the  third,  for  the 
opportunity  to  display  his  military  genius. 
Many  times  he  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of 
breaking  loose,  but  somebody  always  checked 
him  at  the  last  moment.  Nevertheless,  he  al- 
lowed himself  a  certain  luxury  of  pugnacious 
by-play,  as  if  to  hint  to  his  Militarist  entour- 
age that  he  was  not  really  a  peace-loving  milk- 
sop, and  to  warn  foreigners  that  the  scabbard 
he  rattled  held  a  sword,  which  he  was  aching 
to  use. 
In  sending  his  telegram  to  the  Boer  Presi- 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER     75 

dent  Kruger  in  1896,  he  gratified  his  desire  to 
insuh  England.  By  seizing  Kiao-Chau  and  as- 
suming the  protectorate  over  the  province  of 
Shan-tung,  he  gave  notice  that  Germany  would 
not  lag  behind  the  other  European  Powers  in 
land-grabbing.  When  the  United  States  made 
war  on  Spain,  he  did  his  utmost  to  form  a 
European  coalition  to  protect  Spain  and  to 
punish  the  Yankees,  whose  Monroe  Doctrine 
thwarted  his  schemes  in  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere. He  openly  grieved  that  he  had  not  a 
large  fleet,  so  that  he  might  then  and  there 
"take  the  United  States  by  the  scruff  of  the 
neck."  Deprived  of  that  satisfaction,  he  sent 
his  preposterous  Admiral  Diederichs  to  Ma- 
nila on  the  chance  of  clutching  what  he  could 
in  the  disintegration  of  the  Philippines.  Died- 
erichs glowered  upon  the  American  Com- 
modore Dewey  in  that  enraged  mastiff  way 
which  seems  to  be  taught  to  Prussian  officers 
as  part  of  their  drill;  but  Dewey  was  a  simple 
Vermonter,  who  had  never  been  instructed 
that  he  ought  to  quail  at  the  Prussian  glower. 


76     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

and  he  quietly  caused  Diederichs  to  under- 
stand that,  ahhough  his  own  ships  were  infe- 
rior in  number  and  metal,  he  would  attack  the 
German  squadron  if  it  attempted  to  interfere. 
Diederichs  understood.^ 

From  that  time  forward,  the  Kaiser  pur- 
sued a  double  policy  towards  the  United 
States:  in  public,  professing  effusive  friend- 
ship; in  secret,  chafing  against  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  which  barred  his  projected  German 
colonization  in  South  America  and  checked  his 
attempts  by  devious  ways  to  secure  a  foothold 
from  which  the  United  States  would  find  it 
hard  to  dislodge  him.  And  then  he  abetted  the 
scheme  for  organizing  the  German-Americans 
into  a  body  which,  at  the  favorable  moment, 
should  openly  declare  itself  German  and  not 
American,  defy  the  United  States  Government, 
and  work  to  control  this  country  in  the  Kaiser's 
interest.  This  conspiracy  spread  slowly,  noise- 
lessly, unobserved  by  its  proposed  victims,  as 

^  It  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  British  com- 
mander, Chichester,  offered  to  stand  by  Dewey  if  there 
were  need. 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER     77 

if  it  were  a  cancer  which  the  Germans  had  the 
maleficent  art  to  plant  and  nourish. 

But  while  the  Kaiser's  hirelings  sprinkled 
his  poison  secretly,  he  took  delight  in  spectacu- 
lar performances  by  which  to  startle  the  world. 
He  sent  a  "punitive  expedition"  to  China,  and 
bade  it  treat  the  natives  so  frightfully  that  no 
Chinese  would  dare  look  a  German  in  the  face 
for  a  thousand  years.  Waldersee,  who  com- 
manded the  expedition,  saw  to  it  that  the  Im- 
perial order  "to  be  as  Huns"  was  accurately 
carried  out.  Like  the  other  European  Powers, 
Germany  expected  to  snatch  a  huge  slice  of 
China,  but  was  deterred  by  the  adroit  diplo- 
macy of  John  Hay,  the  American  Secretary  of 
State.  The  Kaiser's  attack  on  Venezuela  in 
1902,  intended  nominally  for  the  collection 
of  debts  due  to  Germans,  but  really  to  test 
whether  the  American  Government  would 
defend  the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  something 
stronger  than  words,  might  have  succeeded  if 
a  mere  word-weaver  had  been  President  at 
Washington;  but  Theodore  Roosevelt,   also 


78    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

unterrified  by  the  Prussian  glower,  insisted 
that  the  Kaiser  must  agree  within  forty-eight 
hours  to  submit  the  Venezuelan  dispute  to 
arbitration;  and  the  Kaiser  agreed. 

It  was  in  Europe,  however,  that  William 
displayed  his  purposes  most  ominously.  He 
detached  Turkey  from  her  long-standing  bond 
with  England.  He  extended  Teutonic  in- 
trigues in  the  Balkans.  Taking  advantage  of 
Russia's  entanglement  in  the  war  with  Japan, 
he  bullied  France  and  might  have  attacked  her 
if  he  had  not  distrusted  England's  attitude. 
Still,  he  could  plume  himself  on  having  hum- 
bled France  and  ousted  her  Foreign  Minister, 
Delcasse,  by  merely  rattling  his  scabbard. 
From  that  time  on,  although  his  truculence 
was  less  and  less  guarded,  he  did  not  desist 
from  proclaiming  that  he  held  the  maintenance 
of  peace  to  be  Germany's  mission.  In  191 1  his 
patience  seemed  exhausted ;  for  again  he  made 
French  intrigues  in  Morocco  a  pretext  for  a 
bellicose  demonstration,  and  he  was  on  the 
point  of  invading  France  in  order  to  achieve 


WILLIAM  THE  PEACEMAKER     79 

the  long-threatened  operation  of  "bleeding 
her  white,"  when  he  discovered  that  England 
and  Russia  would  support  France  and  that  his 
finances  were  less  prepared  than  his  Army.  So 
again  he  drew  back  on  the  very  brink  of  hos- 
tilities. Next  year  he  demanded  of  every  Ger- 
man a  five  per  cent  contribution  —  a  "  patri- 
otic sacrifice  "  —  for  the  benefit  of  the  Army. 
These  specimen  acts,  told  in  sequence,  and 
filled  out,  as  they  might  be,  by  many  symp- 
tomatic details,  with  the  addition  of  other  evi- 
dence not  even  referred  to  here,  lay  bare  the 
speciousness  of  the  Kaiser's  claim  to  be  reck- 
oned among  the  peacemakers.  He  aspired  to 
inherit  the  earth,  but  he  was  too  good  a  Prus- 
sian to  suppose  he  could  come  into  that  inher- 
itance by  peace  instead  of  by  war.  And  when 
put  to  the  direct  test  of  reducing  the  number  of 
dreadnoughts  to  be  built  according  to  his  naval 
program,  or  cutting  down  his  Army,  or  enter- 
ing into  a  conference  on  general  disarmament, 
he  flatly  refused,  and  his  mouthpieces  in  the 
press  ridiculed  these  suggestions  as  childish. 


CHAPTER  VII 

KULTUR 

When  't  is  God's  will  to  bring  an  utter  doom 
Upon  a  house,  He  first  in  mortal  men 
Implants  what  works  it  out. 

^SCHYLUS.   Fragment  151. 

DURING  Germany's  long  political  and 
military  preparation  for  world-suprem- 
acy, a  propaganda  for  putting  the  minds  and 
consciences  of  the  German  people  into  har- 
mony with  the  Kaiser's  ambition  went  on  not 
less  effectively,  although  it  appeared  to  be  less 
systematically  organized. 

Insatiate  ambition,  like  jealousy,  is  a  pas- 
sion which  gets  confirmation  and  fresh  fuel 
wherever  it  looks.  In  all  directions  the  Ger- 
mans saw  proofs  that  they  were  the  Chosen 
People.  They  interpreted  the  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution so  as  to  draw  from  it  a  warrant  for  their 
aspirations.  Evolution  taught  that  "the  fit- 
test survived."  Never  was  a  word  more  decep- 


KULTUR  81 

tive  than  that  word  "fittest."  When  we  apply 
it  to  human  concerns,  which  is  fittest?  Man 
and  the  fly  are  widely  diffused  over  the  earth ; 
does  that  imply  parity  between  them  ?  A  thug 
can  murder  the  wisest  philosopher  or  noblest 
statesman ;  the  thug  survives ;  does  that  mean 
that  he  is  "fitter"  than  his  victim?  The  Ger- 
mans believed  that  the  first  element  in  fitness 
to  survive  is  superior  brute  force.  By  that, 
their  ancestors  had  conquered  decaying  Rome ; 
by  that,  the  Manchus  made  themselves  mas- 
ters of  China;  by  that,  the  Spaniards  over- 
threw the  more  highly  civilized  Saracens.  To 
assemble  the  greatest  possible  volume  of 
brute  force,  in  their  Army,  Navy,  fortifica- 
tions, and  equipment,  was  therefore  their 
task. 

A  people  which  persuades  itself  that  it  is 
not  only  superior  but  fittest,  acquires  inevi- 
tably a  supercilious  attitude  towards  the  rest 
of  mankind ;  and  during  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  when  the  Germans  were 
being  infected  by  this  idea,  the  other  Great 


82    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Powers  of  Europe,  and  the  United  States  also, 
accepted  the  doctrine  that  fate  intended  the 
Inferior  Races  to  be  the  chattels  of  the  Su- 
perior Races.  To  seize  the  lands  of  the  black, 
brown,  or  yellow  men  who  could  not  defend 
themselves,  to  exploit  the  natural  resources 
of  their  lands,  and  to  treat  the  black,  brown, 
or  yellow  men  as  part  of  those  resources,  or 
even  as  a  species  of  the  fauna  to  be  hunted 
and  exterminated  at  will,  was  the  cheerful, 
orthodox  creed  of  the  Superior  Races.  Mate- 
rial progress,  which  consisted  in  accumulating 
wealth  at  a  speed  hitherto  unprecedented, 
was  the  standard  which  governed  the  Su- 
perior Races. 

There  is  a  venerable  book  which  declares 
that  God  created  man  in  his  own  image :  this 
Book  makes  no  mention  of  the  color  of  God's 
creatures.  But  in  our  time  white  men  have 
assumed  that  they  alone  are  made  in  God's 
image  and  complexion,  and  that  while  they 
may  be  endowed  with  a  soul,  yellow  and  black 
and  brown  men  are  as  soulless  as  the  beasts 


KULTUR  83 

of  the  field.   The  denial  of  human  solidarity 
opens  the  door  to  hideous  abuses. 

The  Germans  laid  to  heart  this  fatalistic 
gospel  of  Superior  and  Inferior.  With  proper 
logic  they  argued  that,  since  color  was  only 
an  accident,  the  Superior  Race  had  no  more 
obligations  towards  an  Inferior  Race  which 
happened  to  be  white  than  towards  a  black 
or  a  yellow;  and  the  evidences  which  satis- 
fied them  of  their  superiority,  convinced  them 
also  of  the  inferiority  of  their  white  neighbors ! 
By  the  German  gauge,  the  Latins  —  Spanish, 
French,  and  Italians  —  were  manifestly  de- 
cadent. The  Slavs,  led  by  Russia,  had  never 
risen  to  civilization,  but  threatened  to  inun- 
date Central  and  Western  Europe.  England, 
they  had  to  admit,  had  been  both  a  strong  and 
a  valiant  nation;  but  she  was  weary  now, 
with  the  weariness  of  old  age,  which  deterred 
her  from  keeping  up  with  modern  methods, 
and  she  had  become  so  enervated  by  wealth 
that  she  trusted  in  the  gold  of  the  sovereign, 
rather  than  in  the  steel  of  the  sword.    To 


84    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

German  eyes  the  United  States  appeared  as  a 
collection  of  eighty  or  ninety  million  human 
beings,  the  off-scourings  of  a  score  of  coun- 
tries, undisciplined,  lacking  a  unifying  prin- 
ciple, leaderless,  corrupt,  wayward,  ominously 
good-natured,  easily  duped,  and  accessible  to 
only  one  common  motive  —  the  desire  of  the 
dollar.  To  Germany,  sure  that  she  had  the 
mission  and  the  method,  the  task  of  subduing 
her  white  rivals,  whose  internal  decadence  she 
thought  she  had  diagnosed,  no  longer  appeared 
insuperable. 

Ever  since  the  Germans  had  taken  to  eru- 
dition, they  had  surpassed  all  their  competi- 
tors as  doctrinaires.  Their  passion  for  thor- 
oughness, and  their  obedience  to  the  word 
uttered  from  above,  made  them  always  seek 
for  some  theory  to  guide  their  thinking  and 
their  doing;  indeed,  they  felt  ill  at  ease  until 
they  had  put  on  the  stiff  harness  of  some  mas- 
ter theorist. 

Their  poets  of  the  Golden  Period  sang  some- 
what vaguely  of  German  unity  and  of  free- 


KULTUR  85 

dom:  not  Goethe,  who  cared  nothing  for 
either,  setting  humanity  above  patriotism; 
but  Schiller,  whose  soul  was  consumed  by 
his  desire  for  liberty  under  the  form  of  inde- 
pendence, and  Arndt,  and  Korner,  and  other 
patriotic  voices.  Then  came  the  historians, 
Giesebrecht,  and  Savigny,  and  the  battalion 
of  other  resuscitators  of  medieval  Germany, 
which  they  described  with  glowing  detail  and 
with  so  much  sympathy  and  admiration  that 
they  caused  their  countrymen  to  turn  for 
example  and  for  inspiration  from  the  present 
and  look  upon  that  past  seen  as  in  a  rosy 
mirage.  It  is  a  measure  of  the  backwardness 
of  the  Germans  in  political  instinct,  not  less 
than  of  that  atavistic  tendency  of  theirs  to 
which  I  have  referred,  that  they  could  not 
find  a  congenial  resting-place  in  the  politico- 
social  conditions  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
but  were  at  home  only  when  they  had  re- 
verted to  the  Feudalism  of  the  eleventh.  To 
their  satisfaction  in  the  rediscovery  of  Med- 
ievalism presently  was  added  the  German 


86    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Imperial  idea,  another  product  of  the  glam- 
orous Middle  Age;  then  the  spokesmen  of 
Prussia,  as  the  foreordained  Imperial  leader, 
arose;  and  finally,  Prussia  having  created 
the  German  Empire,  the  subsidized  historians. 
Von  Sybel  and  the  rest,  sang  their  chorus  of 
paeans  to  the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  and  to 
the  glories  of  Prussia,  without  which  the 
German  Empire  —  the  dream  of  the  medieval 
Teutons  —  could  never  have  come  to  pass. 

Art  also  conspired  to  glorify,  not  only  Ger- 
man medievalism  but  Germanic  mythology. 
Music,  the  only  art  which  has  flourished  in 
Germany  since  Heine  died,  embodied  through 
Wagner  the  medieval  conceptions  of  Tann- 
hauser  and  Parsifal,  and  the  semi-barbaric 
myths  of  the  Nibelungen  Epic  —  those  myths 
in  which  fighting  is  the  only  honorable  occu- 
pation for  heroes  on  earth,  and  Valhalla  the 
only  heaven  in  which  they  hope  to  dwell. 
The  mighty  sweep  of  Wagner's  compositions 
caused  most  of  his  hearers  to  forget  that  his 
themes  reflected  the  unrestrained  passions  of 


KULTUR  87 

war,  lust,  and  cunning  that  belong  to  an 
uncivilized  race.  German  erudites,  to  whom 
everything  German  is  superior  to  anything 
foreign,  assured  their  countrymen  that  "The 
Ring  of  the  Nibelungs"  need  not  fear  com- 
parison with  the  "lUad"  and  the  "Odyssey"; 
but  the  millions  who  cared  nothing  for  purely 
literary  discussions  drank  in  the  music  like 
wine,  and  through  the  intoxication  it  pro- 
duced in  them,  they  saw  War  and  Valor,  the 
primitive  ideals  of  their  race,  endued  with 
supernal  magic.  So  Wagner's  music  hastened 
the  paganizing  of  the  Germans,  putting  into 
every  German  heart  the  pagan  concepts  out 
of  which  he  framed  his  Trilogy.  At  the  same 
time,  although  Wagner  detested  Prussia  and 
the  Prussians,  he  helped  on  the  Prussianiza- 
tion  of  Germany,  by  reviving  the  atavistic 
worship  of  Valor  and  War.  Being  wrought 
subtly,  these  effects  were  all  the  more  far- 
reaching,  penetrating  even  those  musical 
partisans  who  fought  stubbornly  against 
Wagner's  music.  He  might  have  paraphrased 


88    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

the  wise  remark  of  Fletcher  of  Sahoun:  "I 
care  not  who  \\  rites  the  laws  of  a  nation,  if 
I  may  write  its  operas." 

In  all  this,  the  Germans  were  led,  under 
the  astute  guidance  of  Prussia,  back  to  those 
"old-German  gloomy  times"  and  ideals  of  "a 
barbaric  past,"  which  Goethe  warned  them 
against,  instead  of  to  the  cheering  and  en- 
lightening "eras  in  art  and  literature  when 
remarkable  men  obtained  perfect  culture." 
No  wonder  that  during  the  War  the  Prussian 
censors  have  put  Goethe  under  the  ban. 

Still  more  was  the  Germanic  megalomania 
stimulated  by  direct  propaganda.  Its  high 
priests  fished  out  of  the  waters  of  Lethe  an 
"  Essay  on  the  Inequality  of  Human  Races," 
written  nearly  forty  years  before  by  Count 
Arthur  Gobineau,  a  French  aristocrat,  who 
thought  that  he  had  discovered  the  law  which 
explains  why  some  races  dominate  and  others 
serve.  "Understand  the  law,  obey  it  and 
rule,  and  be  saved  by  it  from  the  decadence 
which  has  overtaken  one  dominant  race  after 


KULTUR  89 

another"  —  that  is  the  burden  of  Gobineau's 
message,  which  the  Germans  took  to  be  ad- 
dressed to  themselves.  What  stronger  back- 
ing could  they  desire  than  these  deductions 
of  the  French  prophet,  who  prophesied  that 
the  Gallic  people  would  go  down  before  the 
Teutonic?  Gobineau  Clubs  sprang  up,  and 
Gobinismus  poured  its  stream  into  the  rising 
flood  of  Pan-Germanism. 

But  the  Germans  had  a  prophet  of  their 
own  —  Heinrich  von  Treitschke,  nominally 
an  historian,  actually,  the  ablest  partisan  in- 
terpreter of  history  that  Germany  had  seen. 
Like  Carlyle,  a  volcano  of  ethical  and  political 
convictions,  a  fanatic,  if  you  will,  Treitschke, 
Slavic  by  descent,  Saxon  by  birth,  anti-Prus- 
sian by  education,  having  been  lured  to  Ber- 
lin, fell  under  the  spell  of  the  Prussianizing 
ambitions,  and  during  the  last  twenty  years 
of  his  life  he  taught  thousands  of  receptive 
Germans  from  his  professorial  chair,  and  mul- 
titudes by  his  writings,  that  the  German  Em- 
pire could,  and  therefore  must,  move  forward 


90    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

to  fulfil  its  transcendent  destiny.  By  expos- 
ing particularly  the  weakness  of  England, 
he  helped  to  implant  hatred  of  her  as  an 
irreconcilable  rival  to  Germany.  He  assailed 
also  Democracy,  and  as  he  spoke  with  vigor, 
which  often  became  vituperative,  he  com- 
manded attention ;  and  as  his  message  was  not 
less  pleasing  than  Gobineau's  to  Teutonic 
ears,  his  words  supplied  texts  for  Pan-Ger- 
manist  promoters.  His  pupils  became  dis- 
ciples, who  carried  his  teaching  to  millions 
who  were  entirely  prepared  to  welcome  it. 
Treitschke,  absolutely  deaf,  arrogant,  inso- 
lent, stupendously  self-centred  and  self-satis- 
fied, closed  his  mental  ears  to  adverse  criti- 
cism ;  and  well  typifies  the  state  of  mind  which 
has  prevailed  in  Germany  under  the  fostering 
methods  of  William  II. 

Philosophy  also  —  if  we  admit  that  phil- 
osophy is  not  the  love  of  wisdom  —  encour- 
aged German  megalomania.  Nietzsche,  an- 
other prophet  of  Slavic  derivation,  proclaimed 
a  creed  which,  if  accepted  literally,  would 


KULTUR  91 

confirm  the  saying  of  the  witty  Frenchwoman 
that  "the  Earth  is  the  madhouse  of  the  uni- 
verse." Indeed,  long  before  Nietzsche  was 
born,  insane  asylums  in  all  countries  swarmed 
with  egomaniacs  who  had  attempted  to  put 
Nietzschean  principles  in  practice.  Nietzsche 
held  that  the  human  race  produces  a  few 
Supermen,  the  law  of  whose  being  is  to  make 
themselves  stronger  and  stronger  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  rest  of  mankind.  Morals  do  not 
exist  for  the  Superman,  because  morals  are 
the  disguised  subterfuges  of  the  weak  to  pro- 
tect themselves  from  the  strong.  Finding 
themselves  crushed  by  the  might  of  the  strong, 
the  weak  invented  a  system  of  good  and  evil, 
a  moral  code  of  right  and  wrong,  according 
to  which  every  one  should  be  judged  equally 
and  the  strong  should  be  punished  without 
fear  or  exception.  The  Superman  must  harden 
himself  against  the  feeling  of  brotherhood,  of 
compassion,  of  mercy,  of  charity.  He  must 
live  "beyond  good  and  evil";  he  must  accept 
no  laws  but  the  caprices  of  his  own  will,  the 


92     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

appetites  and  desires  of  his  carnal  nature,  the 
ambitions  of  what,  were  he  a  man,  would  be 
called  his  soul.  Nietzsche  raged  chiefly  against 
Christianity,  which  had  constructed  the  reli- 
gion under  which  slaves  enjoyed  rights  and 
Supermen  were  reminded  of  their  bondage  to 
the  moral  law.  The  influence  of  Christianity 
was  further  abominable  because  it  enabled 
the  weak,  the  craven,  the  whimpering,  to  rise 
to  positions  where  they  did  not  belong,  and 
kept  alive  masses  who  ought  to  be  let  die. 
Since  Supermen  alone  were  to  be  considered, 
whatever  laid  a  featherweight  of  restraint 
upon  them  was  condemned. 

In  his  own  tragic  pilgrimage  to  the  mad- 
house, Nietzsche  flung  out  many  other  dog- 
mas, often  contradictory,  but  usually  tainted 
with  egocentric  extravagance.  Like  Wagner, 
he  loathed  the  Prussians,  but  that  did  not 
prevent  them  from  seizing  upon  his  philosophy 
of  the  Superman  and  applying  it  to  them- 
selves. Having  once  adopted  it,  they  used 
it  as  the  keystone  of  their  Pan-Germanist 


KULTUR  93 

designs/  Their  racial  self-conceit  did  not  re- 
quire to  be  persuaded  that  they  were  the 
Supermen  outlined  by  Nietzsche ;  and  whether 
the  Kaiser  ever  read  Nietzsche  or  not,  he 
comported  himself  from  the  beginning  of  his 
reign  as  only  one  who  recognized  that  he  was 
a  sublime  Superman  could. 

A  final  argument  came  from  the  Militar- 
ists themselves.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury Clausewitz  wrote  the  first  scientific 
epistles  on  the  worship  of  Moloch.  His  phil- 
osophy of  War  taught  that  War  is  necessary 
and  normal,  and  that  Peace,  unless  it  be  de- 
voted to  preparing  for  War,  is  a  disease  which 
cunningly  saps  the  honor,  strength,  and  even 
the  life  of  a  nation.  No  doubt  the  priests 
of  Judah  found  reasons  for  persuading  their 
countrymen  to  propitiate  Moloch  by  the 
sacrifice  of  children,  reasons  which  would  seem 
crude  to  Germans  filled  with  Hegelian  intri- 
cacies, but  not  less  abhorrent  to  the  moral 
sense  than  are  those  of  the  latest  Prussian 
rhapsodists  of  War.  In  this  business,  ancient 


94    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

and  modern  lose  their  meaning,  for  War 
makes  all  generations  contemporary,  and 
Clausewitz's  doctrines,  which  are  dignified 
by  being  called  "philosophy,"  he  might  have 
heard  from  Attila,  and  Attila  might  have 
learned  them  from  any  wolf  that  possessed 
the  faculty  of  human  speech. 

It  remained  for  General  Fried  rich  von  Bem- 
hardi  to  describe  baldly  what  Germany  had 
accomplished,  what  she  stood  for,  and  how 
she  could  fulfil  her  mission.  He  wrote  three 
years  before  the  Kaiser  forced  war  upon  the 
world  in  1914.  Bernhardi  was  so  brutally 
frank  that  German  apologists  have  tried  to 
disavow  him,  asserting  that  he  was  a  person 
of  no  consequence,  an  army  officer  in  re- 
tirement, who  amused  himself  with  his  mili- 
tary vagaries,  and  they  added  that  nobody 
in  Germany  had  read  his  book.  Sheer  false- 
hoods. His  book  ran  through  many  editions 
before  the  war  broke  out;  his  own  reputa- 
tion as  soldier  and  as  military  expert  had  long 
been  established;  every  one  recognized  that 


KULTUR  95 

he  simply  discussed  matters  which  were  the 
commonplaces  of  the  General  Staff  and  of  the 
poHtical  Chancellery.  And  if  he  had  never 
written,  scores  upon  scores  of  other  Germans 
had  been  pouring  out  for  more  than  a  decade 
articles,  monographs,  books,  all  fraught  with 
the  same  message.  Bernhardi  wrote  most 
clearly  —  that  was  the  secret  of  his  sudden 
and  immense  popularity. 

His  book,  "Germany  and  the  Next  War,'* 
bears  the  stamp  of  authenticity  in  the  utter 
unreserve  with  which  it  discusses  projects 
which  either  shame  or  discretion  might  have 
counseled  him  not  to  divulge.  In  this  respect 
it  resembles  Machiavelli's  "Prince"  and 
Frederick  the  Great's  "Confessions.'*  He 
takes  it  for  granted  that  his  readers  are  at 
one  with  him  on  his  general  proposition :  that 
they  will  no  more  dispute  the  declaration  that 
Germany  must  acquire  world-dominion,  and 
that  she  must  resort  to  war  to  gain  her  ends, 
than  a  group  of  surgeons  would  wrangle  over 
the  necessity  of  surgery.    Bernhardi's  sole 


96    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

question  was,  when  to  perform  the  operation. 
Having  demonstrated  a  nation's  right  to 
make  war,  he  easily  proves  that  it  is  a  duty 
to  make  it,  and  then  he  so  traces  Germany's 
historical  development  as  to  arrive  at  the  con- 
clusion that  the  time  is  at  hand  for  her  to 
risk  everything  in  a  gigantic  struggle.  World- 
dominion  or  downfall  —  these  are  the  alter- 
natives which  Germany  must  face.  He  has 
nothing  but  contempt  for  a  nation  which, 
having  come  within  striking  distance  of  world- 
dominion,  hesitates  or  turns  back. 

The  last  part  of  his  book  is  practical,  in 
contrast  to  the  doctrinal  quality  of  the  first 
part.  He  takes  up  questions  of  armament,  of 
the  navy,  of  the  forces  Germany  can  muster 
and  those  of  her  enemies,  of  political  condi- 
tions at  home,  of  diplomatic  relations  abroad, 
of  finance,  and  of  so  manipulating  the  German 
people  that  they  will  regard  the  war,  when  it 
comes,  as  inevitable,  and  as  being  forced  upon 
them  by  jealous  and  wicked  rivals,  and  that 
they  will  support  it  with  patriotic  zeal.    He 


KULTUR  97 

points  to  England  as  the  chief  adversary,  but, 
as  if  to  dispel  any  unjustifiable  respect  Ger- 
mans might  still  feel  for  England  as  a  Great 
Power,  he  describes  her  miHtary  feebleness, 
her  internal  unsoundness,  the  senile  palsy 
creeping  through  her  body  and  shaking  her 
will.  Only  in  her  navy  is  she  still  preeminent; 
but  he  thinks  that  Germany  can  equal  her  in 
naval  material  and  in  training  and  surpass 
her  in  cannon,  and  by  torpedo  boats  work 
great  damage  to  her  fleet. 

Bernhardi's  discussion  of  the  best  plan  of 
campaign  is  not  less  lucid  than  his  examina- 
tion of  the  various  alliances  which  might  be 
formed  and  how  to  deal  with  each.  But  the 
significance  of  his  book  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  the  revelation  of  the  purpose  of  the  Ger- 
man Imperial  Despotism  to  rule  the  world, 
and  of  the  preparations  made  therefor.  We 
might  call  it  "German  Militarism  in  the  Con- 
fessional,'' except  that  confession  suggests  the 
recognition  of  having  sinned,  whereas  the 
German  Militarists,  from  the  Kaiser  down, 


98    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

instead  of  compunction,  felt  only  such  impa- 
tience as  train-robbers  may  feel  who,  having 
perfected  every  plan,  count  the  moments  for 
the  train  to  heave  in  sight. 

Bernhardi  quotes  many  laudations  of  war,^ 
beginning  with  Heraclitus  of  Ephesus,  who 
said,  "War  is  the  father  of  all  things." 

Here  are  other  mottoes:  — 

War  is  as  necessary  as  the  struggle  of  the  ele- 
ments in  nature.    (A.  W.  von  Schlegel.) 

Wars  are  terrible,  but  necessary,  for  they  save 
the  State  from  social  petrifaction  and  stagna- 
tion. It  is  well  that  the  transitoriness  of  the 
goods  of  this  world  is  not  only  preached  but  is 
learned  by  experience.  War  alone  teaches  this 
lesson.    (Kuno  Fischer.) 

A  thousand  touching  traits  testify  to  the  sa- 
cred power  of  the  love  which  a  righteous  war 
awakes  in  noble  nations.    (Treltschke.) 

War  opens  the  most  fruitful  field  to  all  vir- 
tues, for  at  every  moment  constancy,  pity,  mag- 
nanimity, heroism,  and  mercy  shine  forth  in  it. 
(Frederick  the  Great.) 

1  I  quote  from  the  English  Popular  Edition.  F.  von 
Bernhardi:  Germany  and  the  Next  War.  London:  Arnold. 
1914. 


KULTUR  99 

It  has  always  been  the  weary,  spiritless,  and 
exhausted  ages  which  have  played  with  the 
dreams  of  perpetual  peace.   (Treitschke.) 

As  an  unanswerable  argument  for  any  one 
who  may  still  be  bound  by  the  tradition  that 
Christianity  enjoins  love  and  peace,  Bern- 
hardi,  with  a  deviltry  at  which  Mephistophe- 
les  would  chuckle,  adds :  — 

Christ  himself  said:  "I  am  not  come  to  send 
peace  on  earth  but  a  sword."  .  .  .  Thus,  ac- 
cording to  Christianity,  we  cannot  disapprove 
of  war  in  itself,  but  must  admit  it  is  justified 
morally  and  historically. 

I  add  a  few  of  Bernhardi's  own  dicta, 
chosen  almost  at  random:  they  express  not 
only  his  individual  opinions,  but  those  of  the 
Ring  which  has  shaped  the  policy  of  modern 
Germany. 

Since  almost  every  part  of  the  globe  is  inhab- 
ited, new  territory  must,  as  a  rule,  be  obtained 
at  the  cost  of  its  possessors  —  that  is  to  say, 
by  conquest,  which  thus  becomes  a  law  of  ne- 
cessity. .  .  .  Over-populated  countries  pour  a 
stream  of  emigrants  into  other  States  and  terri- 


100     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

tories.  These  submit  to  the  legislature  of  the 
new  country,  but  try  to  obtain  favorable  condi- 
tions of  existence  for  themselves  at  the  cost  of 
the  original  inhabitants  with  whom  they  com- 
pete.  This  amounts  to  conquest. 

The  conception  of  the  constitutional  State  in 
the  strictest  sense  is  an  impossibility,  and  would 
lead  to  an  intolerable  state  of  things. 

There  never  have  been,  and  never  will  be, 
universal  rights  of  men. 

Even  if  a  comprehensive  international  code 
were  drawn  up,  no  self-respecting  nation  would 
sacrifice  its  sense  of  right  to  it. 

Arbitration  treaties  must  be  peculiarly  detri- 
mental to  an  aspiring  people  which  has  not  yet 
reached  its  political  and  national  zenith,  and  is 
bent  on  expanding  its  power  in  order  to  play  its 
part  honorably  in  the  civilized  world. 

We  are  facing  a  hidden,  but  none  the  less  for- 
midable crisis  —  perhaps  the  most  momentous 
crisis  in  the  history  of  the  German  nation.  We 
have  fought  in  the  last  great  wars  for  our  na- 
tional union,  and  our  position  among  the  Powers 
of  Europe;  we  must  now  decide  whether  we  wish 
to  develop  into  and  maintain  a  World-Empire, 
and  procure  for  German  spirit  and  German 
ideas  that  fit  recognition  which  has  been  hither- 
to withheld  from  them. 


KULTUR  101 

In  one  way  or  another,  we  must  square  our 
account  with  France,  if  we  wish  for  a  free  hand  in 
our  international  policy.  This  is  the  first  and 
foremost  condition  of  a  sound  German  policy, 
and  since  the  hostility  of  France  once  for  all 
cannot  be  removed  by  peaceful  overtures,  the 
matter  must  be  settled  by  force  of  arms.  France 
must  be  so  completely  crushed  that  she  can 
never  again  come  across  our  path. 

No  people  is  so  little  qualified  as  the  German 
to  direct  its  own  destinies,  whether  in  a  par- 
liamentarian or  republican  constitution;  to  no 
people  is  the  customary  Liberal  pattern  so  in- 
appropriate as  to  us. 

Our  own  country,  by  employing  its  military 
powers,  has  attained  a  degree  of  Kultur  which 
it  never  could  have  by  the  methods  of  peaceful 
development. 

War  is  only  a  means  of  attaining  ends  and 
of  supporting  moral  strength. 

The  first  and  most  essential  duty  of  every 
great  civilized  people  is  to  prepare  for  war 
on  a  scale  commensurate  with  its  political 
need. 

When  public  opinion  does  not  stand  under 
control  of  a  master  will,  or  a  compelling  neces- 
sity, it  can  be  too  easily  led  astray  by  the  most 
varied  influences.    This  danger  is  particularly 


102     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

great  in  a  country  so  torn  asunder,  both  inter- 
nally and  externally,  as  Germany. 

Our  western  frontier,  in  itself  strong,  can  be 
easily  turned  on  the  north  through  Belgium  and 
Holland.  No  natural  obstacle,  no  strong  for- 
tress, is  there  to  oppose  a  hostile  invasion,  and 
neutrahty  is  only  a  paper  bulwark. 

We  shall  therefore  some  day,  perhaps,  be 
faced  with  the  necessity  of  standing  isolated  in 
a  great  war  of  the  nations  .  .  .  and  shall  have  to 
trust  to  our  own  strength  and  our  own  reso- 
lution for  victory.  Such  a  war  —  for  us  more 
than  for  any  other  nation  —  must  be  a  war  for 
our  political  and  national  existence.  This  must 
be  so,  for  our  opponents  can  only  attain  their 
political  aims  by  almost  annihilating  us  by  land 
and  by  sea.  If  the  victory  is  only  half  won,  they 
would  have  to  expect  continuous  renewals  of 
the  contest,  which  would  be  contrary  to  their 
interests.  They  know  that  well  enough,  and 
therefore  avoid  the  contest,  since  we  shall  cer- 
tainly defend  ourselves  with  the  utmost  bit- 
terness and  obstinacy.  If,  notwithstanding, 
circumstances  make  the  war  inevitable,  then 
the  intention  of  our  enemies  to  crush  us  to  the 
ground,  and  our  own  resolve  to  maintain  our 
position  victoriously,  will  make  it  a  war  of 
desperation.   A  war  fought  and  lost  under  such 


KULTUR  103 

circumstances  would  destroy  our  laboriously 
gained  political  importance,  would  jeopardize 
the  whole  future  of  our  nation,  would  throw 
us  back  for  centuries,  would  shake  the  influence 
of  German  thought  in  the  civilized  world,  and 
thus  check  the  general  progress  of  mankind  in 
its  healthy  development,  for  which  a  flourishing 
Germany  is  the  essential  condition.  Our  next 
war  will  be  fought  for  the  highest  interests  of 
our  country  and  of  mankind.  This  will  in- 
vest it  with  importance  in  the  world's  history. 
"World  power  or  downfall!"  will  be  our  rally- 
ing cry. 

We  Germans  have  a  far  greater  and  more  ur- 
gent duty  towards  civilization  to  perform  than 
the  Great  Asiatic  Power  [Japan].  We,  like  the 
Japanese,  can  only  fulfil  it  by  the  sword. 

There  can  only  be  a  short  respite  before  we 
once  more  face  the  question  whether  we  will 
draw  the  sword  for  our  position  in  the  world  or 
renounce  such  position  once  and  for  all.  We 
must  not  in  any  case  wait  until  our  opponents 
have  completed  their  arming  and  decide  that 
the  hour  of  attack  has  come. 

Bemhardi  wrote  this  last  warning  in  Octo- 
ber, 191 3,  and  in  July,  1914,  the  Kaiser  and 
his  Ring  decided  that  Germany's  opponents 


104     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

were  in  such  unfavorable  conditions  that  her 
hour  of  destiny  had  struck.  Then  ensued  the 
Atrocious  War,  which  had  been  prepared  for 
with  more  persistence,  more  thoroughness, 
more  ingenuity,  and  over  a  longer  time,  than 
any  other  in  modern  history. 

This  war  sprang  as  naturally  from  the  Ger- 
man heart  and  will  as  a  vulture  springs  from 
its  nest.  Prussian  egomania,  which  had  suc- 
ceeded in  identifying  German  national  inter- 
ests with  its  own;  the  example  of  Frederick 
and  Moltke  and  Bismarck;  the  impassioned 
gospel  of  Treitschke ;  the  comforting  reminder 
of  Nietzsche  that  to  be  a  Superman,  you 
must  act  like  a  Superman ;  the  demonstration 
of  Bernhardi  that  Germany  must  not  longer 
postpone  her  battle  for  World-Dominion; 
and  the  HohenzoUern  dynastic  ambition,  cir- 
culating through  every  artery  and  vein  of  the 
Empire.  —  were  elements,  symptoms,  omens, 
that  can  neither  be  denied  nor  explained  away. 
Of  course,  we  must  remember  that  Kant, 
Fichte,  and  Hegel  —  especially  Hegel,  with 


KULTUR  105 

his  ideal  of  the  State  —  had  preceded;  but 
it  is  the  men  who  translate  theory  into  action 
whom  we  hold  responsible.  The  mind  of  the 
disciple,  like  an  imperfect  lens,  distorts  the 
teaching  of  the  master. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PRUSSIANIZING   GERMANY 

Look  to  the  essence  of  a  thing,  whether  it  be  a  point  of 
doctrine,  of  practice,  or  of  interpretation. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  viii,  22. 

CIVILIZED  peoples  have  invariably  cher- 
ished an  ideal,  which  they  call  Culture 
—  it  might  be  of  the  intellect;  it  might  be 
of  the  soul. 

The  culture  which  affects  the  soul  is  two- 
fold, according  as  it  lays  greater  stress  on 
Goodness  or  on  Beauty.  "To  make  reason 
and  the  will  of  God  prevail,''  as  Bishop  Wil- 
son expressed  it,  is  the  end  of  ethical  culture ; 
and  life  thus  conceived  becomes,  in  Arnold's 
phrase,  a  "study  of  perfection."  The  defini- 
tion of  Culture  which  springs  from  Beauty, 
or  has  Beauty  for  its  special  quest  and  desire, 
evades  a  formula.  Like  Marlowe,  we  still  ask : 
"What  is  beauty?"  But  we  recognize  Taste 
as  the  product  of  this  culture.  In  actual  life, 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     107 

however,  we  seldom  disturb  ourselves  over 
these  nice  distinctions.  We  see  men  who  are 
cultivated  chiefly  on  the  side  of  intellect; 
others  we  think  of  in  terms  of  goodness,  lovers 
of  their  fellow  men,  seekers  after  moral  and 
social  perfection;  and  we  know  those  whom 
metre  or  music  or  color  or  form  sets  vibrating 
—  the  artists. 

The  ideal  man  possesses  taste  and  sympa- 
thy, the  qualities  common  to  all  of  these.  He  is 
not  a  specialist  —  for  to  be  a  specialist  almost 
inevitably  limits  open-mindedness  and  sym- 
pathy. He  is  cultivated  rather  than  learned; 
and  nothing  about  him,  not  even  his  talk,  will 
appear  salient  or  aggressive,  but  all  will  be 
natural,  and  whatever  he  has  acquired  from 
learning,  life,  or  art  will  flow  from  him  as 
simply  as  fragrance  from  a  flower.  By  his 
manners  you  shall  know  him  —  manners 
which  register  self-control  and  kindliness, 
justice,  magnanimity,  and  fairness. 

That  is  not  Culture  which  does  not  event- 
uate in  the  gentleman.   A  glow  of  chivalry 


io8    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

clings  about  it.  We  see  it  in  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney's beautiful,  simple  courtesy  to  the  dying 
soldier.  It  can  manifest  itself  through  the 
highest  heroism  and  through  the  contacts  of 
everyday  life.  Although  known  by  what  it 
avoids  doing,  it  is  as  affirmative  as  sunshine 
or  as  health.  But  why  multiply  phrases  when 
Culture  speaks  for  itself? 

Culture  of  the  broad  and  hospitable  kind 
has  found  only  a  scanty  soil  in  Germany,  and 
until  Goethe  came,  it  had  in  fact  hardly 
sprouted  there.  In  a  community  where  the 
standards  of  living  not  less  than  of  learning 
lagged  behind  those  of  Germany's  neighbors, 
Goethe's  insatiate  curiosity  soon  exhausted  its 
German  provender  and  seized  upon  the  Re- 
naissance and  Classical  Antiquity  to  enrich  his 
poetic  genius.  But  the  culture  which  Goethe 
exemplified  better  than  any  other  modern 
was  that  of  an  Olympian  egotism.  Cultivate 
yourself  for  yourself;  act  as  if  the  law  of  your 
being  were  universal  law :  does  not  this  advice 
underlie  the  Goethean  system? 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     109 

Goethe  quickened  wide  interests  among 
the  Germans,  and  contributed  more  than  all 
of  them  combined  to  the  store  of  world- 
literature  ;  but  the  culture  which  they  learned 
from  him  was  the  culture  of  erudition  and 
of  egotism.  They  ransacked  the  libraries  for 
subjects  great  and  small,  inspected  each 
through  the  microscope,  held  post-mortems 
on  every  figure  in  art,  letters,  science,  and 
history,  and  buried  each  under  a  mound  — 
in  Goethe's  case,  a  mountain  —  of  treatises, 
through  which  we  tunnel  with  difficulty,  if  at 
all,  to  the  original.  The  German  passion  for 
thoroughness  stood  between  them  and  Cul- 
ture of  the  higher  sort,  that  Culture  with 
which  the  qualities  of  a  gentleman,  not  those 
of  a  pedant  or  a  soldier,  are  inherently  asso- 
ciated. It  is  significant  that  the  German  lan- 
guage has  no  word  for  gentleman.  The  gen- 
tleman cannot  be  created  by  pinning  an  iron 
cross  or  a  red  eagle  on  the  lapel  of  an  army 
officer  or  of  a  university  luminary,  or  by 
dubbing  him  "von." 


no     GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

With  the  expansion  of  science,  in  which  the 
Germans  took  a  leading  part,  the  idea  of  Cul- 
ture as  a  possession  of  the  soul  dwindled  away, 
and  in  its  place  loomed  up  Kultur,  a  product 
of  the  intellect.  For  a  while  Kultur  meant 
to  the  Germans  Civilization,  "that  complex 
whole  which  includes  knowledge,  belief,  art, 
morals,  law,  custom,  and  any  other  capabili- 
ties and  habits  acquired  by  man  as  a  member 
of  society."  But  little  by  little  Kultur,  when 
used  in  reference  to  matters  German,  ac- 
quired a  restricted  meaning.  It  no  longer 
concerned  the  individual,  nor  did  it  suggest 
personal  refinement.  Kultur  meant  specific- 
ally the  system  which  ruled  Germany,  and 
as  that  system  became  Prussianized,  Kultur 
was  Prussianized.  During  the  past  twenty 
years  its  definition  has  been:  Whatever 
strengthens  the  German  Empire  under  the 
dynasty  of  Hohenzollern  is  Kultur. 

The  Army,  therefore,  as  William  II  has 
reiterated  throughout  his  reign,  is  the  cardi- 
nal instrument  and  prop  of  Kultur,  and  the 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     in 

Krupp  howitzer  is  its  fittest  emblem.  Edu- 
cation, which  taught  submissiveness  and 
instilled  into  the  youngest  pupil  the  com- 
mandments of  Kultur,  came  next,  but  an  un- 
bridgeable abyss  separated  the  educators  from 
the  privileged  militarist  class.  To  the  Ger- 
man people,  as  we  have  already  witnessed, 
such  discrimination  seemed  proper,  and  to  the 
Prussians  the  idea  that  the  monarch  should 
be  despotic  was  as  natural  as  that  a  tiger 
should  be  striped.  Frederick  the  Great  on  his 
walks  through  Berlin  used  to  cane  any  bur- 
gher whose  aspect  happened  to  displease  him; 
and  his  loyal  Berliners,  instead  of  being  in- 
censed, may  have  felt  honored  by  the  chas- 
tisement. William  II  used  more  insidious 
means  than  caning  to  express  his  displeasure; 
but  the  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Prus- 
sians to  accept  whatever  the  monarch  deigned 
to  bestow,  was  not  less  subservient  than  in 
Frederick's  time. 

The  guiding  principle  of  Kultur  is  unques- 
tioning duty  to  the  State.  Its  aim  is  Efficiency, 


112     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

and  never  has  another  nation  brought  Effi- 
ciency to  such  perfecticfn.  But  to  what  pur- 
pose? Culture,  according  to  Arnold,  strives 
"to  make  Reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail/' 
Kultur,  on  the  contrary,  aims  to  make  the 
German  Empire  under  the  House  of  Hohen- 
zollem  prevail;  it  would  be  rash  to  identify 
either  of  these  with  Reason  and  the  will  of 
God. 

From  whatever  angle  we  have  looked  at 
the  Germanic  development  in  recent  genera- 
tions, our  vision  has  always  fixed,  sooner  or 
later,  on  an  impenetrable  core  of  egotism  which 
easily  swells  to  arrogance,  and  from  arro- 
gance to  insolence.  The  victories  of  1870  gave 
cause  for  military  exultation.  German  schol- 
arship had  the  cry,  and  no  German  professor 
would  admit  that  he  could  think  of  himself 
more  highly  than  he  ought  to  think.  The 
German  imagination  peopled  the  past  with 
vague  and  vast  achievements  performed  by 
heroes  —  German,  always  German  —  more 
than  mortal. 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     113 

Coming  very  late  into  the  comity  of  nations, 
the  Germans  were  at  the  disadvantage  of 
nourishing  their  minds  on  their  home-made 
philosophy  and  literature  of  yesterday  or 
today.  Now,  if  their  philosophers  had  been 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  their  poets  Dante 
and  Shakespeare,  the  fact  that  they  were  al- 
most if  not  quite  contemporary  would  have 
detracted  somewhat  from  their  value  as 
guides.  The  Germans  bred  in  and  in,  a  proc- 
ess which  leads  to  egomania  if  not  to  insanity. 
The  Englishman  is  insular,  but  his  tradi- 
tional training  in  the  Classics  and  his  transac- 
tions in  the  world's  business  have  given  him 
that  breadth  of  view  which  comes  from  know- 
ing intimately  the  history  and  ideals  of  great 
races  far  removed  in  time  and  blood  from 
ourselves,  and  from  actual  cosmopolitanism. 
So  was  it  with  the  Puritans,  who  fed  on  the 
Bible,  which,  besides  providing  them  with 
their  religion,  unfolded  to  them  also  the  ways 
of  remote  but  mighty  races. 

The  recent  German,  on  the  contrary,  has 


114    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

been  brought  up  to  suppose  that  whatever 
was  not  German  was  inferior,  to  be  tolerated 
only  until  it  could  be  replaced  by  a  German 
product,  or,  if  not  replaced,  destroyed.  Not 
content  with  puffing  themselves  up,  the  Ger- 
mans have  lately  listened  complacently  to 
zealots  who  claim  that  it  was  a  hidden  Ger- 
manicism  in  Dante,  Shakespeare,  and  other 
foreign  masters  ^  which  made  them  great, 
and  that  even  Jesus  Christ  was  honored  by 
having  a  strain  of  Teutonic  blood  in  his  veins. 
If  certain  grave  professors  tell  the  truth,  there 
have  been  only  two  literatures  worthy  of 
consideration  —  the  German  and  the  Greek. 

^  See  Ludwig  Woltmann's  treatises.  Vinci,  he  asserts, 
is  plainly  the  German  Wincke;  Vecellio  is  Vetzel;  Buon- 
arotti  is  Bohnrodt!  He  claims  as  Germans  many  French 
celebrities  —  Lafayette,  Pascal,  Voltaire,  Cuvier,  Des- 
cartes, Robespierre,  Balzac,  Musset,  Lamartine,  Hugo, 
Zola,  and  many  others.  Even  if  these  claims  were  estab- 
lished, should  we  not  ask:  Why  has  Germany  produced  no 
Titians  and  Michael  Angelos  and  Leonardos  herself?  Why 
no  Voltaires  and  Balzacs  and  Hugos?  If  these  types  of 
genius  appear  in  Italy  and  in  France  and  not  in  Germany, 
a  non-Kultured  logic  would  deduce  that  it  must  be  the 
Italian  or  the  French  strain  in  the  blood,  and  not  the  Ger- 
man, which  produced  them. 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     115 

To  paraphrase  what  Whistler  said  of  Nature, 
"Why  drag  in  the  Greek?" 

A  man  who  spends  his  life  looking  at  him- 
self in  the  glass  cannot  fail  to  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  he  is  unique,  perfect,  the  pattern 
and  standard  of  all  men.  This  has  been  Ger- 
many's attitude  for  five-and-twenty  years. 
Although  Germans  have  traveled  to  all  parts 
of  the  earth,  establishing  industrial  colonies, 
prospecting  for  commercial  enterprises,  or 
filling  professors'  chairs,  they  have  been  so 
swallowed  up  by  their  Germanism  that  they 
have  not  understood  the  natures  of  the  peo- 
ples among  whom  they  moved.  To  a  German 
the  "psychology"  of  every  one  else  is  a  sealed 
book.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  For  be- 
tween the  German  and  you  and  me,  when  he 
looks  at  us,  there  is  the  mirror,  invisible  to 
you  and  me,  in  which  he  is  doting  over  his 
own  features. 

Far,  indeed,  has  Kultur  strayed  from 
Culture  —  Kultur  so  repulsively  self-bloated, 
wearing  its  ego  on  the  outside,  as  the  turtle 


ii6    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

wears  its  skeleton,  till  it  becomes  thick,  in- 
durated, and  at  last,  impenetrable;  Culture, 
which  looks  beyond  itself,  seeks  the  best 
wherever  it  exists,  recognizes  the  validity  of 
different  standards,  and  practices  tolerance 
without  in  the  least  surrendering  convictions. 
As  Kultur  has  trumpeted  its  own  praises 
everywhere,  it  is  unnecessary  to  cite  many 
specimens  of  it.  I  content  myself  with  quot- 
ing a  few  lines  from  a  letter  written  to  a  friend 
in  Holland  by  Dr.  Adolf  Lassen,  Professor  of 
the  Love  of  Wisdom  (Philosophy),  at  the 
University  of  Berlin.  The  letter  was  written 
in  the  third  month  of  the  war:  — 

No  one  can  remain  neutral  to  the  German 
State  and  people.  Either  you  must  consider  it 
the  most  perfect  creation  that  history  has  pro- 
duced up  to  now,  or  you  acquiesce  in  its  de- 
struction; nay,  in  its  extermination.  A  man  who 
is  not  a  German,  knows  nothing  of  Germany. 
We  are  morally  and  intellectually  superior  be- 
yond all  comparison  as  to  our  organizations  and 
our  institutions.  .  .  .  Our  Army  is  the  epitome 
of  German  excellence. 


PRUSSIANIZING  GERMANY     117 

As  Professor  Lassen  was  eighty-four  years 
old  when  he  wrote  this,  we  have  a  right  to 
assume  that  his  opinions  were  dehberate  and 
mature,  free  aUke  from  the  exaggerations  of 
a  callow  partisan  and  from  the  explosive  fury 
of  a  young  fanatic. 

When  an  octogenarian,  delivering  himself 
in  this  fashion,  represents  the  whirling 
thoughts  of  an  entire  nation,  war  must  be 
imminent.  The  only  alternative  to  war  would 
be  the  insane  asylum:  but  even  Germany, 
with  all  her  preparation,  had  made  no  pro- 
vision for  locking  herself  up.  If  a  man  tells 
you  that  he  is  the  most  perfect  creation  on 
earth,  the  sacred  vessel  in  whom  is  preserved 
the  essentials  of  the  highest  civilization,  you 
dissemble  your  amusement  and  pass  on.  For 
a  nation  to  make  such  a  boast  without 
blushing  —  Kultur  never  blushes  —  portends 
evil. 

The  stages  by  which  Kultur  led  up  to  war 
^re  thus  plain.  First,  it  Prussianized  the  Ger- 
man people,  by  teaching  the  non-German 


ii8    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

States  that  the  interests  of  the  Empire  co- 
incided with  those  of  Prussia.  Next,  it  kept 
assuring  the  Germans  that  they  were  the  most 
marvelous  of  all  races,  an  assertion  which 
they  had  no  reluctance  in  believing.  And 
then  Kultur  preached  that  the  other  Powers, 
secretly  conscious  of  their  inferiority,  were 
devoured  by  jealousy  of  Germany's  superior- 
ity, and  that,  foreseeing  that  they  must  go 
down  before  it,  they  formed  a  league  to  ward 
off  their  own  destruction  by  crushing  Ger- 
many. This  suggestion,  artfully  insinuated 
and  repeated  every  day  from  all  quarters 
throughout  many  years,  became  an  over- 
whelming obsession. 

The  German  Army,  with  the  Krupp  how- 
itzer as  its  highest  product,  embodied  Kultur; 
and  the  nation,  obsessed  to  the  point  of  fury, 
felt  relief  from  suspense  when  its  masters 
hurled  the  Army  against  the  league  of  foes. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  THE   ATROCIOUS  WAR   BEGAN 

Forgetful  is  green  earth;  the  Gods  alone 
Remember  everlastingly:  they  strike 
Remorselessly,  and  ever  like  for  like. 
By  their  great  memories  the  Gods  are  known. 
George  Meredith:  France:  December y  1870. 

THE  Kaiser  and  his  Ring  have  not  been 
able  to  evade  the  guih  of  beginning  this 
war.  The  inky  stream,  which,  Hke  the  cuttle- 
fish, they  have  emitted  in  their  efforts  to  es- 
cape, has  not  availed  them.  Their  garbled  or 
faked  documents,  slyly  mixed  in  with  bits  of 
genuine  evidence,  have  been  exposed.  After 
all,  however,  in  fixing  the  responsibility  for 
a  vast  conflict,  the  historian  seeks  to  know, 
not  only  who  kindled  the  spark  that  set  off 
the  explosion,  but  also  who  accumulated  the 
powder  to  be  exploded,  and  who  would  bene- 
fit most  by  the  explosion. 

On  their  own  confession,  the  Germans  have 
been  for  years  fully  prepared  for  war.  "Hur- 


120     GERiMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

rah  for  the  dry  powder  and  the  sharp  sword," 
the  Kaiser  shouted  long  ago;  "for  the  end  we 
have  in  sight  and  the  forces  we  are  bending 
towards  it,  for  the  German  Army  and  the 
General  Staff!"  And  on  another  occasion  he 
declared:  "The  Teuton  never  fights  better 
than  when  he  is  called  upon  to  defend  himself 
on  all  sides.  So  let  our  enemies  begin.  We 
are  ready  for  them  all ! '' 

Nobody  has  questioned  Germany's  mate- 
rial preparedness.  But  what  of  her  will,  what 
of  her  desires?  Has  she  been  harboring  reso- 
lutions of  peace  ?  Has  she  been  contented  with 
her  position  as  one  of  the  European  Powers  ? 
Has  she  never  hinted  that  her  increase  in 
population  not  less  than  her  industrial  expan- 
sion called  for  territorial  and  colonial  aggran- 
dizement? Who  was  it  that  declared,  as  far 
back  as  June  i8,  1891:  "In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  we  have  no  such  fleet  as  we  should  have, 
we  have  conquered  for  ourselves  a  place  in  the 
sun.  It  will  now  be  my  task  to  see  to  it  that 
this  place  in  the  sun  shall  remain  our  undis- 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       121 

puted  possession  ...  for  our  future  lies  upon 
the  water".? 

The  desire  and  the  will  to  conquer  were  in 
the  hearts  of  the  Germans.  The  other  Pow- 
ers—  England,  France,  and  Russia  —  would 
unquestionably  have  been  glad  to  see  Ger- 
many humbled;  but  neither  singly  nor  in 
coalition  would  they  attack  her;  and,  with 
what  seems  now  fatuous  trustfulness,  the 
English,  at  least,  refused  to  believe  that  the 
Germans  would  carry  out  the  project  towards 
which  their  preparation  pointed.  Since  1905, 
the  agreement  entered  into  by  the  Triple 
Entente  —  England,  France,  and  Russia  — 
aimed  at  mutual  defense  in  case  Germany 
should  assail  any  of  them.  The  will  to  attack 
dwelt  in  the  Kaiser  and  his  military  chiefs. 
Their  sole  concern  was  to  choose  the  propi- 
tious moment. 

Why  did  they  regard  the  last  of  July,  1914, 
as  the  appointed  time?  William's  golden 
opportunity  came  in  1905  when  Russia,  in 
a  death-grapple  with  Japan,  could  not  assist 


122     GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

France,  which  he  wished  then  to  shatter  be- 
yond recovery.  But  he  did  not  feel  quite  sure 
of  England's  neutrality;  and  as  France  bowed 
her  head  at  his  threats,  he  decided  to  sheathe 
his  sword,  and  during  the  next  seven  or  eight 
years  he  contented  himself  with  rattling  his 
scabbard. 

The  Balkan  War  of  1912  bristled  with  in- 
ternational asperities,  any  one  of  which  might 
have  served  as  an  excuse  to  the  great  Powers 
for  entering  the  conflict;  but  they  refrained. 
The  next  year,  however,  Germany  thought 
the  time  ripe.  Austria,  her  willing  vassal, 
acquiesced,  and  sounded  Italy,  their  partner 
in  the  Triple  Alliance;  but  Italy  refused  to 
join  them,  because  they  were  bent  on  a  war 
of  conquest,  whereas  the  terms  of  partnership 
required  Italy's  cooperation  only  for  a  war  of 
defense. 

When  1914  came,  William  II  determined 
to  wait  no  longer.  He  planned  that  Austria 
should  be  his  cat's-paw  to  reduce  Servia  to 
vassalage,  and  so  both  to  push  forward  Teu- 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       123 

tonic  ascendency  in  the  Balkans  and  to  humil- 
iate Russia,  as  Austria,  abetted  by  Germany, 
had  humiliated  her  in  1909  by  annexing  Bos- 
nia and  Herzegovina.  The  conditions  as  he 
and  his  Ring  saw  them  were  so  favorable  that 
it  mattered  little  what  Italy  did.  Of  his  own 
strength  he  had  no  doubts.  The  German 
Army  had  been  increased,  and  the  fruits  of 
the  five  per  cent  patriotic  contribution  had 
served  in  many  ways  to  complete  prepara- 
tions. The  Kiel  Canal,  which  as  a  means  of 
naval  strategy  was  worth  more  than  several 
dreadnoughts,  had  been  dedicated  in  June 
and  was  in  perfect  running  order.  The  Ger- 
man Navy  itself,  although  evidently  inferior 
to  the  British,  seemed  to  the  eager  Kaiser  so 
formidable  that  it  might  play  a  great  part  in 
the  war. 

But  the  unreadiness  of  his  enemies,  rather 
than  his  own  strength,  persuaded  him.  France 
was  reducing  her  term  of  military  service, 
and  with  it,  in  the  opinion  of  many  critics, 
the  efficiency  of  her  Army.    It  was  no  secret 


124    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

that  she  had  reached  the  limit  in  her  con- 
scription. Her  lack  of  artillery  and  other 
equipment  was  so  notorious  that  Deputy 
Humbert  had  publicly  exposed  it  in  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies.  An  unsavory  scandal, 
involving  even  Cabinet  Ministers,  aroused 
fierce  dissensions  and  was  construed  as  a  symp- 
tom of  a  far-reaching  corruption  which  would 
paralyze  national  energy,  if  a  sudden  call 
were  made  upon  it.  In  Russia,  also,  internal 
unrest  seethed.  Several  hundred  thousand 
strikers  at  St.  Petersburg  had  to  be  quelled 
by  the  troops.  German  spies  had  doubtless 
reported  that  Russia's  store  of  munitions 
would  not  suffice  for  a  long  campaign.  Worse 
still,  Russia  was  just  midway  in  changing 
from  the  old  to  the  new  army  system.  The 
Russian  strategic  railways,  planned  to  en- 
able her  to  pour  her  millions  of  soldiers  on 
to  the  German  and  Austrian  frontiers,  would 
not  be  finished  till  1917  —  a  fact  which 
warned  William  to  make  haste. 
Although  he  appears  to  have  felt  a  slight 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       125 

uncertainty  as  to  England's  probable  course, 
he  believed  that  the  odds  lay  greatly  against 
her  breaking  away  from  her  traditional  neu- 
tral policy.  Early  in  May,  he  instructed  his 
Ambassador  at  London,  to  discover  if  he  could 
—  without  allowing  his  purpose  to  be  sus- 
pected —  whether,  in  case  of  a  general  Conti- 
nental war,  England  would  fight  or  not.  Prince 
Lichnowsky,  his  Ambassador,  is  said  to  have 
sent  a  most  reassuring  report,  in  which  he 
showed  that  Great  Britain  was  in  no  condition 
to  fight.  Her  quarrels  over  Home  Rule  and 
Ulster  had  reached  the  verge  of  civil  war; 
party  strife  had  fomented  discord  so  bitter 
that  no  united  national  action  was  to  be  looked 
for;  labor  was  in  revolt;  the  pusillanimity  of 
the  Cabinet  could  be  measured  by  the  extent 
to  which  a  handful  of  Suffragettes  had  terror- 
ized it  and  the  country.  Underlying  all  was 
the  fact,  amply  proved  by  the  Boer  War,  that 
the  English  had  ceased  to  be  a  martial  people. 
Wealth,  sapping  their  valor,  made  them  prefer 
peace,  the  condition  which  promotes  wealth. 


126    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

So  the  Kaiser  could  push  Austria  into  war 
with  a  light  heart.  Needing  a  pretext,  he 
pitched  upon  the  assassination  of  the  Aus- 
trian Crown  Prince  by  a  Serb,  and  encouraged 
Austria  to  make  demands  so  exorbitant  that, 
if  Serbia  assented  to  them,  she  would  vir- 
tually forfeit  her  independence.  Throughout 
the  month  of  July  such  warlike  preparations 
went  forward  in  Germany  as  would  not  ex- 
cite suspicion.  Forebodings,  doubts,  rumors, 
came  and  went  in  the  European  press,  but 
they  seemed  baseless,  and  the  public  refused 
to  believe  that  the  murder  of  a  single  indi- 
vidual, even  though  he  were  an  Austrian 
Archduke,  would  lead  to  war.  Pretending 
that  the  matter  concerned  Austria  alone, 
Germany  kept  herself  aloof,  only  insisting 
that  Austria  should  have  a  free  hand.  In 
spite  of  these  German  denials  of  collusion, 
there  is  ample  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Kaiser,  about  the  middle  of  July,  saw  and 
approved  Austria's  ultimatum  to  Serbia,  and 
then  he  went  off  yachting  in  order  to  create 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       127 

the  impression  that  he  was  not  implicated 
in  the  negotiations  which  were  designed  to 
make  war  inevitable.  These  subterfuges  had 
so  quieting  an  effect  outside  of  Germany  and 
Austria,  that  European  diplomats  and  for- 
eign ministers  began  to  think  of  summer  vaca- 
tions. The  French  President,  indeed,  cruised 
in  the  Baltic  and  paid  an  official  visit  to  the 
Czar. 

On  July  23  the  Austrian  ultimatum  was 
delivered  at  Belgrade.  The  next  day  Europe 
took  a  sudden  anxious  interest  in  the  affair. 
At  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  July  25  the 
Austrian  Minister  at  Belgrade,  having  barely 
glanced  at  it,  stated  that,  since  Serbia's  re- 
sponse to  the  ultimatum  was  not  satisfac- 
tory, he  was  instructed  to  break  off  diplo- 
matic relations.  That  same  night,  while  he 
and  his  staff  were  traveling  to  Vienna,  Aus- 
tria issued  orders  to  mobilize  the  army.  And 
yet  Serbia  had  conceded  nearly  all  the  de- 
mands of  the  Austrian  Empire,  except  that 
which  meant  the  extinction  of  her  national 


128    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

independence.  The  brave  little  kingdom, 
recently  wasted  by  two  terrible  wars,  num- 
bered only  five  million  inhabitants;  Austria 
had  more  than  fifty  million. 

From  the  moment  the  ultimatum  was  sent, 
France  and  England  urged  Austria  to  con- 
sider the  possible  fearful  results  of  carrying 
out  her  threat.  They  also  urged  Germany  to 
bring  pressure  to  bear  on  her  Austrian  vassal. 
Russia  made  it  clear  enough  that  she  did  not 
desire  war,  but  that  she  would  not  allow  Ser- 
bia to  be  crushed.  Austria  took  a  high-handed 
attitude. 

Suddenly,  on  the  evening  of  July  26,  Em- 
peror William  returned  to  Berlin.  As  he  en- 
tered the  room  where  the  military  and  cabinet 
chiefs  were  conferring,  the  Crown  Prince  said 
to  him,  sarcastically:  "Father,  you  arrive  too 
late!'*  It  having  been  tacitly  agreed  that 
they  should  make  war  inevitable  during  the 
Kaiser's  absence,  —  to  shield  him,  —  they 
did  not  wish  him  to  muddle  what  they 
had  done. 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       129 

But  the  Over-War-Lord  could  be  trusted 
to  seize  the  occasion  which  he  had  impatiently 
waited  for  during  many  years.  He  sent  eva- 
sive telegrams  to  his  cousins,  King  George 
of  England  and  Czar  Nicholas  of  Russia.  So 
far  as  appears,  neither  he  nor  Chancellor 
Bethmann-HoUweg  nor  Foreign  Secretary 
Jagow  had  hinted  to  Austria,  not  that  she 
should  soften  her  demands,  but  even  that  she 
should  refrain  from  pressing  them  for  a  few 
days.  The  Kaiser  insisted  that  it  was  none  of 
Europe's  business  whether  Austria  trounced 
Serbia  or  not;  and  so  he  logically  approved 
of  Austria's  mobilization,  while  declaring  to 
the  Czar  that  if  Russia  mobilized,  mediation 
would  be  "  threatened  if  not  made  impossible." 
The  Czar  gave  his  solemn  promise  that  as 
long  as  negotiations  between  Austria  and 
Serbia  continued,  his  troops  would  undertake 
no  provocative  action. 

Suddenly,  for  some  reason  still  unexplained, 
on  July  31,  Austria  consented  to  enter  into 
informal  "conversations''  with  Russia  —  an 


130    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

indication,  optimists  thought,  that  war  might 
be  averted;  because  up  to  the  day  before  she 
had  insisted  that  her  deahngs  with  Serbia 
were  a  private  affair,  which  she  would  discuss 
with  nobody  else.  Who  at  Vienna  suddenly 
waked  up  to  the  fact  that  the  War  Cabal  in 
the  Army  and  Cabinet,  in  collusion  with  the 
German  Ambassador,  was  involving  Austria, 
not  merely  in  a  brush  with  the  Serbian 
pygmy,  but  in  a  European  War  of  incalcula- 
ble scope?  Even  a  day's  delay  for  "conversa- 
tions" might  check  the  militarist  plunge  into 
war. 

William,  however,  although  he  knew  of 
Austria's  offer  to  "converse,"  frustrated  this 
eleventh-hour  hesitation,  and  saw  to  it  that 
war  should  come.  At  midnight  on  July  31 
he  telegraphed  an  ultimatum  to  St.  Peters- 
burg, saying  that,  unless  Russia  ceased  within 
twelve  hours  all  warlike  measures  against 
both  Germany  and  Austria,  Germany  would 
mobilize.  Only  one  construction  can  be  placed 
on  this  ultimatum  —  William  purposed  that 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       131 

It  should  force  Russia  to  fight.  When  Russia 
allowed  the  twelve  hours  to  elapse  without 
obeying  William's  command,  he  declared  war 
upon  her.  On  that  same  July  3 1  the  German 
Ambassador  in  Paris  addressed  a  menacing 
communication  to  the  French  Government, 
demanding  to  know  within  eighteen  hours 
whether  France  would  remain  neutral  in  case 
of  war  between  Germany  and  Russia.  De- 
clining to  give  any  pledge,  Viviani,  the  French 
Prime  Minister,  simply  stated  that  France 
would  consult  her  own  interests. 

On  August  2,  the  German  troops  went 
swarming  through  Luxemburg,  and  massed 
on  the  Belgian  frontier.  Germany  postponed 
formally  declaring  war,  although  she  was  ac- 
tually at  war,  in  the  hope  that  some  chance 
shot  might  justify  her  in  asserting  that  France 
began  hostilities.^  The  Kaiser  resorted  to  this 
guile,  which  was  as  transparent  as  it  was 
specious,  in  order  to  hold  Italy  to  those  terms 

*  German  apologists  subsequently  laid  great  stress  on 
the  report  that  two  French  officers  were  seen  motoring  on 
a  Belgian  road  before  war  was  declared! 


132     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

of  the  Triple  Alliance  which  bound  her  to 
join  the  Teutonic  Powers  in  case  they  were 
attacked.  The  Italians  were  not  deceived. 
By  their  refusal  to  be  drawn  into  the  war  of 
aggression,  the  Teutons  stand  convicted. 

This  long  record  of  Germany's  preparation 
for  the  war  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  her  guilt. 
If  any  persons  are  still  duped  into  thinking 
the  Kaiser  sincere  when  he  protested  his  love 
of  peace,  let  them  explain  why  he  did  not,  as 
a  friend,  dissuade  Austria  from  flinging  at 
Serbia  the  firebrand  ultimatum.  Let  them 
explain  why,  when  the  firebrand  had  been 
hurled  and  Austria  was  bombarding  Belgrade, 
he  declared  truculently  that  the  affair  did  not 
concern  Europe,  and  intimated  that  he  would 
allow  no  meddling.  When  had  Europe  au- 
thorized him  to  prescribe  for  her  the  limits 
of  her  jurisdiction  ?  Finally,  let  them  explain 
why,  when  Austria  paused  to  "converse" 
with  Russia,  he  sent  the  Czar  the  ultimatum 
which  could  mean  only  war.  That  he  ordered 
his  troops  to  invade   Belgium  and   France 


HOW  THE  WAR  BEGAN       133 

before  declaring  war,  would  of  itself  discredit 
his  pretended  reverence  for  peace.  It  was  the 
last  link  in  the  chain  of  hypocrisy,  stretching 
back  over  twenty-five  years. 

Thus  the  Atrocious  War  began,  and  atro- 
cious in  history  will  be  William  who  began  it. 

As  we  picture  him  watching  his  neighbors 
year  after  year  and  waiting  till  he  judged  the 
moment  ripe  for  smiting  them,  we  have  a 
vision  of  a  butcher  who  goes  out  every  day 
to  look  over  his  cattle,  and  even  hands  them 
wisps  of  hay  to  make  them  believe  that  he  is 
peaceable  and  friendly;  and  then  the  morn- 
ing comes  when  he  hurries  them  off  to  the 
shambles.  Such  is  the  role  played  by  a 
War-Lord,  drunk  with  ambition  for  world- 
dominion.^ 

*  The  first  sources  for  the  diplomacy  which  led  up  to  the 
War  are,  of  course,  the  Official  Papers  of  the  various  belli- 
gerents. The  best  brief  analysis  of  these  is  in  The  Evidence 
in  the  Case,  by  James  M.  Beck.  (New  York:  Putnam, 
191 4.)  An  exhaustive  treatise  is  that  of  Ellery  C.  Stowell: 
The  Diplomacy  of  the  War  oj  1914^  vol.  I.  (Boston:  Hough- 
ton Mifflin  Co.  1915.) 


CHAPTER  X 

BELGIUM 

All  pity  choked  with  custom  of  fell  deeds: 

That  this  foul  deed  shall  smell  above  the  earth 
With  carrion  men,  groaning  for  burial. 

Shakespeare:  Julius  Ccssar,  in,  i. 

DURING  the  last  days  of  July,  1914, 
seven  and  a  half  million  Belgian  men, 
women,  and  children  lived  their  ordinary 
lives,  industrious,  peaceful,  and  thrifty  peo- 
ple, little  blazoned  in  the  world's  dispatches. 
A  fortnight  later,  Belgium  had  suffered  mar- 
tyrdom which  will  keep  her  name  and  that  of 
her  destroyer  alive  as  long  as  posterity  shall 
remember  examples  of  supreme  heroism  and 
of  Satanic  guilt.  So  nigh  was  grandeur  to  her 
dust,  and  so  unsuspected  by  those  in  whom 
it  dwelt! 

During  fourscore  years  Belgium  had  existed 
as  an  independent  nation,  coveted  alike  by 
France  and  Germany,  but  unharmed  by  both; 


BELGIUM  135 

for  her  right  to  existence  had  been  guaran- 
teed by  the  great  Powers.  Even  in  1870,  when 
Prussia  was  hurling  her  armies  against  France, 
and  the  passage  through  Belgium  would  have 
been  most  useful,  Bismarck  showed  sufficient 
regard  for  public  opinion  in  Europe  and 
America  to  declare  that  Prussia  would  not 
violate  the  neutrality  of  Belgium.  Bismarck 
pricked  any  of  the  Ten  Commandments  like 
a  bubble,  when  he  thought  he  could  gain 
anything  thereby;  but,  being  a  statesman, 
he  avoided  wanton  lawlessness,  not  because 
it  was  wanton,  but  because  it  was  bad  state- 
craft. 

William  II,  however,  who  deemed  himself 
greater  than  Bismarck,  thought  that  he 
proved  his  superiority  by  violating  all  laws. 
^  On  the  morning  of  August  4  he  sent  his 
troops  into  Belgium.  That  same  afternoon, 
when  Sir  Edward  Goschen  interviewed  the 
German  Chancellor,  in  the  forlorn  hope  that 
the  avalanche  of  war  already  started  might 
be  checked  mid-course,  he  found  Bethmann- 


136     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Hollweg  "very  agitated."  For  England  had 
announced  that,  if  Belgium  were  invaded,  she 
would  fulfil  her  solemn  promise  to  defend  Bel- 
gian neutrality.  "His  Excellency,"  Goschen 
records,  "at  once  began  a  harangue  which 
lasted  for  about  twenty  minutes.  He  said 
that  the  step  taken  by  the  [British]  Govern- 
ment was  terrible  to  a  degree;  just  for  a  word 
—  'neutrahty,'  a  word  which  in  war-time  has 
so  often  been  disregarded — just  for  a  scrap 
of  paper y  Great  Britain  was  going  to  make 
war  on  a  kindred  nation  who  desired  nothing 
better  than  to  be  friends  with  her."  ^  That 
"scrap  of  paper,"  torn  by  the  command  of 
the  impatient  Kaiser,  will  float  for  ages  on 
every  wind  as  an  indictment  of  his  crime. 

On  that  same  day,  August  4,  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  made  this  explanation  to  the  Ger- 
man Reichstag:  — 

Gentlemen,  we  are  now  in  a  state  of  necessity, 
and  necessity  knows  no  law!  Our  troops  have 
occupied  Luxemburg,  and  perhaps  [as  a  matter 

»  Stowell,  I,  365. 


BELGIUM  137 

of  fact  the  speaker  knew  that  Belgium  had  been 
invaded  that  morning]  are  already  on  Belgian 
soil.  Gentlemen,  that  is  contrary  to  the  dic- 
tates of  international  law.  It  is  true  that  the 
French  Government  has  declared  at  Brussels 
that  France  is  willing  to  respect  the  neutrality 
of  Belgium  as  long  as  her  opponent  respects  it. 
We  knew,  however,  that  France  stood  ready 
for  the  invasion.  France  could  wait,  but  we 
could  not  wait.  A  French  movement  upon  our 
flank  upon  the  lower  Rhine  might  have  been 
disastrous.  So  we  were  compelled  to  override 
the  just  protest  of  the  Luxemburg  and  Belgian 
Governments.  The  wrong  —  I  speak  openly 
—  that  we  are  committing,  we  will  endeavor  to 
make  good  as  soon  as  our  military  goal  has  been 
reached.  Anybody  who  is  threatened,  as  we  are 
threatened  and  is  fighting  for  his  highest  posses- 
sions, can  have  only  one  thought  —  how  he  is 
to  hack  his  way  through  1  ^ 

These  words,  blurted  out  by  the  Chancellor 
in  palliation  of  Germany's  crime,  will  be 
stamped  as  indelibly  on  the  pages  of  history 
as  was  Belshazzar's  condemnation  on  the  wall 
of  his  banquet-room.  Addressing  the  members 

1  Stowell,  I,  445-46. 


138    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

of  the  Reichstag,  into  whom  the  venom  of 
Kultur  had  penetrated,  Bethmann-Hollweg 
knew  that  his  plea  of  necessity  would  be  ac- 
cepted as  a  matter  of  course:  for  the  first  prin- 
:iple  of  Kultur  teaches  that  whatever  Prus- 
sianized Germany  wishes  to  do  is  therefore 
"necessary."  The  burglar  who,  on  being 
caught,  should  protest  that  it  was  "necessary'' 
for  him  to  break  a  bank,  would  be  only  a  ready 
disciple  of  German  Kultur. 

So  the  Kaiser's  troops  violated  the  Belgian 
frontier,  and  advanced  with  clatter  of  cavalry 
scouts  and  goose-step  tramp  of  infantry,  with 
rumble  of  cannon  and  whirr  of  myriad  motors 
and  trucks,  into  the  doomed  country.  "Let 
us  through!"  shouted  the  Prussians;  "let  us 
through,  or  we  will  hack  our  way  through!" 
And  although  Belgium  was  but  a  small  coun- 
try —  her  army  at  its  maximum  counting  less 
than  one  to  ten  of  the  Germans  —  knowing 
the  awful  risk,  she  resolutely  and  without  fear 
blocked  the  way.  In  the  face  of  men  for  all 
time  she  bore  witness  that  she  set  honor  above 


BELGIUM  139 

life,  and  she  showed  that  valor,  being  of  the 
soul,  bears  no  relation  to  bodily  size. 

At  Liege  she  checked  the  onslaught  of  the 
Germans,  who  were  at  first  surprised  by  her 
foolhardiness,  and  then  infuriated.  They 
quickly  threw  off  the  restraints  of  civilized 
warfare,  in  which  they  were  never  at  ease,  and 
proved  themselves  in  acts  the  Huns  they  were 
at  heart,  if  not  by  descent.  Repulsed  again 
and  again  from  the  forts  of  Liege,  they  had  to 
wait  until  the  mass  of  their  troops  came  up, 
regiment  after  regiment,  like  the  successive 
waves  of  a  rising  flood,  with  their  monster 
siege-guns,  the  latest  achievement  of  Krupp 
Kultur,  before  they  could  swamp  the  Belgian 
defenders  and  pass  on  their  way  westward. 

Glorious  Liege !  Her  name  will  shine  beside 
that  of  Thermopylae.  Thrice  fortunate  the 
heroes  who  died  there  defending  their  homes, 
their  country's  honor,  and  civilization  itself! 
As  long  as  time  shall  be,  their  example  shall 
hearten  brave  men  to  fight  for  liberty  against 
desperate  odds ;  and  when  this  titanic  struggle 


140    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

between  the  armies  of  Might  and  the  armies 
of  Right  has  closed,  and  the  free  nations  of 
the  world  look  back  upon  it,  they  will  over- 
flow with  gratitude  for  Liege.  Six  or  seven 
days  are  but  a  moment  in  a  man's  lifetime; 
and  yet  the  six  or  seven  days  during  which 
Liege  blocked  the  onrush  of  the  German 
hordes,  outweigh  in  fatefulness  many  a  cen- 
tury in  the  lifetime  of  civilization.  They 
saved  France;  with  France,  they  saved  the 
cause  of  the  Allies.  That  check  shattered 
the  military  plan  which  Germany  had  been 
elaborating  for  forty  years,  the  plan  in  which 
every  minute  detail  was  worked  out,  every- 
thing mechanical  was  provided  for  and  under 
control.  One  thing  alone  had  Krupp  Kultur 
overlooked ;  it  had  assumed  that  the  Belgians 
like  the  Germans  were  machines,  not  souls; 
but  that  small,  brave  company  of  Belgian 
souls  at  Liege  rose  up  and  dashed  against 
and  dislocated  the  gigantic  German  machine, 
and  wrecked  the  mechanically  perfect  plan  of 
Krupp  Kultur.  The  Germans  never  entered 


BELGIUM  141 

Paris.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  driven 
back  from  the  Marne  to  the  Aisne,  and  they 
would  have  retreated  to  the  Rhine,  if  the 
French  munitions  had  not  given  out.  The 
heroes  of  Liege  had  not  died  in  vain. 

Enraged  by  the  resistance,  perhaps  stung 
by  the  loathing  with  which  the  civilized  world 
greeted  their  declaration  that  their  most  sol- 
emn promise  was  only  a  scrap  of  paper,  the 
Germans  proceeded  to  wreak  on  innocent 
Belgium  their  system  of  Frightfulness.  The 
horrors  they  committed  in  those  weeks  of 
August  and  September  cannot  be  put  into 
words.  To  whatever  town  they  came,  though 
it  were  unfortified  and  undefended,  they  came 
as  Huns  into  whose  ruthless  hands  modern 
science  had  put  tools  of  destruction  unknown 
to  their  ancestors.  Attila's  barbarians  spread 
fire  from  house  to  house  by  the  torch;  the  bar- 
barians of  William  II  carried  incendiary  pas- 
tilles, which  they  threw  into  rooms,  and  en- 
gines filled  with  petroleum  which  they  sprayed 
on   the    condemned   buildings.     Here    they 


142     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

battered  down  by  cannonade ;  there  they  blew 
up  by  dynamite.  In  the  country,  they  demol- 
ished the  tiny  villages,  where  only  old  men 
and  women  and  children  lingered.  And  they 
did  not  spare  even  the  solitary  peasant's  cot- 
tage. They  looted  first  and  then  they  laid 
waste.  In  the  cities  of  Flanders  and  Brabant 
they  made  the  masterpieces  of  the  famous 
architects  who  built  in  a  golden  age  their 
special  butt,  as  if  the  mere  sight  of  Beauty 
maddened  them. 

But  it  was  upon  living,  human  beings 
that  German  Frightfulness,  formulated  by 
the  General  Staff  and  sanctioned  by  Empe- 
ror William,  vented  itself  without  mercy. 
Scarcely  a  place  escaped  horror  in  one  or 
many  forms.  Unarmed  men,  burgomasters 
and  local  notables,  quiet  shopkeepers,  work- 
men and  servants,  were  seized,  maltreated, 
killed,  some  without  warning,  others  after 
prolonged  suspense,  and  the  refinement  of 
cruelty. 

We  read  that  the  Kaiser's  minions  took  a 


BELGIUM  143 

father  and  son  into  a  garden,  shot  the  son, 
compelled  the  father  to  stand  at  the  feet  of 
the  corpse,  and  then  shot  him.  They  com- 
pelled wives  to  look  on  while  their  husbands 
were  shot,  before  subjecting  the  women  to 
outrage  worse  than  death.  They  had  no  pity 
for  children.  In  a  single  house  they  dispatched 
a  little  girl  and  her  two  smaller  brothers ;  and, 
as  if  they  were  Herod's  hirelings,  they  slaugh- 
tered even  infants,  skewering  some  on  their 
bayonets,  ripping  or  slashing  others  with 
their  swords.  Where  they  did  not  kill,  they 
mutilated.  They  resorted  to  the  savage 
practice  of  taking  hostages,  whom  they  slew 
if  any  irresponsible  inhabitant  was  unruly  or 
committed  a  violent  act  or  was  suspected  of 
sniping.  Often  they  did  not  wait  for  a  pre- 
text; but  sometimes,  as  at  Louvain,  their 
soldiers  fired  into  the  streets  from  the  na- 
tives' windows,  and  then,  with  the  cry  that 
the  Louvainers  were  sniping  the  Germans, 
they  redoubled  their  orgy  of  rape  and  pillage, 
and  arson  and  murder.    Sometimes  they  led 


144    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

out  their  victims  in  large  batches  and  mas- 
sacred them  by  forties  and  fifties  and  by  hun- 
dreds. In  one  town  they  herded  a  crowd  of 
men,  women,  and  children  into  the  market- 
place, and  opened  fire  upon  them  without 
warning;  and  we  hear  that  three  little  boys, 
seeing  their  elders  drop  around  them,  clasped 
each  other  tightly  and  died  together  when 
the  volley  reached  them.  Once,  at  least,  they 
ranged  their  victims  in  two  parallel  lines, 
those  behind  having  to  wait  and  behold  those 
in  front  fall,  some  killed,  others  writhing  in 
agony,  before  their  own  turn  came.  These 
thorough  Huns  did  not  overlook  priests ;  hav- 
ing compelled  one  cure  to  help  in  digging  a 
huge  grave  for  a  heap  of  slaughtered,  they 
then  shot  him,  there  being  left  a  hole  large 
enough  to  roll  his  body  into.  Hellish  was 
their  conduct  towards  women  —  w^omen?  — 
towards  females  of  any  age.  In  one  village 
a  grandmother  of  eighty  and  a  little  girl  of 
eight  succumbed  to  the  lust  of  William's  sol- 
diers.  The  oflScers  are  accused  of  reserving 


BELGIUM  145 

the  best  for  themselves.  Nor  did  horrors  stop 
on  the  threshold  of  nunneries.  ^ 

These  things,  being  a  part  of  history,  must 
be  recorded  here.  I  cite  at  random  only  a 
few  examples,  few,  but  typical.  Whoever 
will,  can  read  the  infernal  roster,  in  which  the 
number  of  individual  victims  mounts  to 
thousands  and  still  is  incomplete.  Such  acts 
link  William  II  of  Hohenzollern  in  the  same 
exorbitance  of  atrocity  with  Nana  Sahib  of 
Cawnpore. 

The  War-Lord  who  permitted  his  army  to 
inflict  these  horrors  upon  the  noncombatant 
civilians  of  entire  provinces  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  forbid  his  soldiers  in  the  field  to 
drive  women  and  children  before  them  to 
screen  them  in  an  attack:  nor  could  he  be 
so  squeamish  as  to  feel  ashamed  when  they 
fired  upon  ambulances,  or  shelled  hospital 
ships. 

^  See  the  Bryce  Report,  and  the  statements  issued  by 
Professor  Joseph  Bedier  for  the  French  investigating  com- 
mittee. 


146    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

In  modern  war,  even  as  it  has  been  fought 
by  civilized  nations,  the  brutal  passions  which 
were  once  uppermost  in  all  men,  but  which 
in  most  men  have  been  slowly  subdued,  burst 
into  fierce  activity.  Indeed,  war,  being  a  re- 
version to  a  barbaric  state,  is  the  natural  envi- 
ronment where  these  barbaric  instincts  flour- 
ish. Rapine,  murder,  and  pillage  blacken  the 
annals  of  every  campaign ;  but  the  Germans 
who  practiced  them  on  the  Belgians  in  19 14 
were  loaded  with  a  special  burden  of  guilt. 
The  apologist  of  Teuton  ferocity  cannot  plead 
that  these  fiendish  acts  were  sporadic,  or 
were  due  to  drunkenness,  or  to  a  sudden 
explosion  of  fury,  or  to  any  other  unpre- 
meditated cause.  In  their  system  of  war,  the 
Prussians  not  only  foresaw  but  prescribed 
their  use.  They  knew  that  bloodthirstiness 
and  lust  and  the  mania  for  destruction  lie 
very  near  the  surface  in  soldiers,  and  they 
touched  off  these  passions  as  deliberately  as 
they  exploded  a  mine.  This  they  called 
Frightfulness,   and   they    thought    that    by 


BELGIUM  147 

applying  it  in  all  its  diabolical  rigor  they 
could  terrorize  the  Belgians  into  abject  sub- 
mission. Their  self-centred  psychology  misled 
them  in  this  case  as  in  many  others.  Are 
we  to  infer  that  they  would  have  been  terror- 
ized by  such  atrocities?  They  never  broke 
the  Belgian  spirit,  and  it  was  not  until  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  their  troops  bestrode 
Belgium,  that  her  gallant  people  ceased  to 
resist. 

Then  it  was  that  the  modern  Huns  dis- 
covered that  they  had  raised  up  against 
themselves  a  record  of  infamy  which  all  their 
armies  could  not  blot  out,  and  which  all  the 
victories  they  might  win,  were  it  that  world- 
dominion  they  coveted,  could  never  con- 
done. Human  suffering  speaks  through  dumb 
mouths  which  no  tyrant  can  smother.  The 
anguish  and  martyrdom  suffered  by  the  rav- 
ished Belgian  women,  by  the  innocent  little 
children,  by  the  unarmed  men,  old  and  young, 
horrified  every  humane  heart  the  wide  world 
round ;  and  though  the  Prussian  dynasty  were 


148    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

to  reign  from  now  till  Doomsday,  on  the  brow 
of  each  Hohenzollern  despot,  as  he  mounts 
his  throne,  invisible  hands  will  stamp  the 
name  "  Belgium,"  as  ineffaceable  as  the  brand 
of  Cain. 


CHAPTER  XI 


MENDACITY 


Of  every  malice  that  wins  hate  in  Heaven, 
Injury  is  the  end;  and  all  such  end 
Either  by  force  or  fraud  afflicteth  others. 
But  because  fraud  is  man's  peculiar  vice, 
More  it  displeases  God;  and  so  stand  lowest 
The  fraudulent,  and  great  dole  assails  them. 
Dante:  Hell,  xi,  22-27.  (Longfellow's  translation.) 

NOT  alone  in  Belgium  did  Prussian  psy- 
chology err.  Regarding  the  Belgians 
as  so  puny  as  to  be  negligible,  and  judging 
them  as  if  they  were  Germans,  it  had  taken 
it  for  granted  that  they  would  not  oppose  an 
empire  whose  army  outnumbered  theirs  by 
ten  to  one;  but  the  Belgians,  reasoning  and 
feeling  in  quite  un-Prussian  ways,  dared  to 
resist,  and  their  resistance,  as  we  have  seen, 
although  it  was  brief,  threw  out  of  joint 
the  grand  strategy  of  the  German  Staff.  The 
Kaiser  did  not  celebrate  Napoleon's  Birth- 
day by  a  dinner  in  Paris,  as  he  had  planned. 


150    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

nor  did  he  dictate  overwhelming  terms  of 
peace  to  France.  Neither  did  he  paralyze 
Russia  by  a  sudden  drive. 

German  psychology,  unhinged  by  Belgium's 
courage,  was  smashed  beyond  repair  by  Eng- 
land's decision.  For  England,  instead  of  being 
the  weary  Titan,  afraid  of  Suffragettes  and 
terrified  by  Irish  factions,  instead  of  being  a 
sordid  money-bags  concerned  only  in  amass- 
ing wealth,  declared  that  she  would  fulfil  her 
pledge  and  defend  Belgium.  She,  at  least, 
would  not  subscribe  to  the  Prussian  doctrine 
that  small  nations  had  no  right  to  exist;  and 
although  she  had  only  "  a  gentleman's  agree- 
ment" with  France,  that  to  her  was  binding. 

At  the  first  suspicion  that  England's  psy- 
chology would  not  function  as  the  Prussians 
had  calculated,  the  German  Chancellor  tried 
to  seduce  her  to  desert  France  and  Belgium. 
In  the  German  code,  honor  pledged  in  the  past 
is  to  be  thrown  over,  if  it  prove  inconvenient 
in  the  present.  To  Bethmann-HoUweg  this 
was  so  self-evident  a  truth  that  he  listened 


MENDACITY  151 

with  incredulity  and  then  flew  into  wild  rage 
when  he  was  told  that  England  did  not  look 
upon  a  solemn  compact  as  "a  mere  scrap 
of  paper."  The  next  day,  when  the  British 
Prime  Minister  told  the  Commons  and  the 
world  that  no  Englishman  could  listen  to  this 
"infamous  proposal,"  his  laconic  statement 
required  no  amplification.  Everywhere  out- 
side of  Germany  it  was  held  to  be  obvious 
that  he  could  make  no  other. 

Then  burst  upon  England  the  wrath  of 
Kaiser  and  Chancellor,  and  of  every  German 
who  spoke  out;  and  tiny  boys  and  girls  were 
taught  like  parrots  to  repeat  the  curse,  ''Goti 
strafe  England,''  —  God  punish  England, — 
and  to  glower  with  hate  whenever  they  heard 
England's  name.  So  a  robber,  who  is  sur- 
prised by  a  policeman  just  as  he  is  in  the 
act  of  sandbagging  a  victim,  turns  with  fury 
upon  the  policeman,  curses  him  and  calls  him 
unfair  and  the  despoiler  of  the  ancient  pro- 
fession of  robbers  —  the  profession  by  which 
the  HohenzoUerns  had  thriven  for  centuries. 


152     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

The  frenzy  into  which  Germany  flew  over 
England's  keeping  her  promise  to  defend 
Belgium  and  the  rights  of  small  nations,  be- 
came chronic.  It  was  a  confession  that  she 
was  the  ultimate  enemy  at  whom  the  vast 
German  war  preparations  were  aimed.  The 
official  pretext  alleged  was  that  Germany 
took  up  arms  to  save  herself  and  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Western  Europe  from  the  Slavic  Peril. 
We  were  asked  to  believe  that  the  subjects 
of  the  Hohenzollern  and  the  Hapsburg  Em- 
perors lived  in  dread  of  being  submerged  by 
a  flood  of  Muscovite  barbarians,  which  would 
sweep  away  Kultur  and  the  inferior  but  still 
recognized  civilization  of  England,  France, 
and  Italy.  The  Czar's  mobilization  of  part 
of  his  army  to  succor  Serbia,  after  Austria 
had  not  only  mobilized  her  troops,  but  was 
actually  bombarding  the  Serbian  capital,  was 
advanced  by  the  Germans  as  a  sign  that  the 
floodgates  of  the  Slavic  Peril  had  broken  down. 
Instead  of  making  straight  for  Russia,  how- 
ever, the  German  armies  made  straight  for 


MENDACITY  153 

Belgium  and  France  —  a  strange  blunder  in 
geography  for  a  people  whose  impeccable 
maps  were  drawn  by  Kiepert  and  whose  won- 
derful guide-books  were  compiled  by  Bae- 
deker! Only  a  commander-in-chief  saturated 
with  the  logic  of  Kultur  would  rush  due  west 
to  repel  a  foe  who  was  massing  his  forces  to 
attack  four  hundred  miles  due  east. 

In  truth,  the  Kaiser  was  simply  carrying 
out  the  plan  laid  down  years  before  by  the 
General  Staff:  in  spite  of  England's  interfer- 
ence, he  still  hoped  to  crush  France  before 
English  help  could  reach  her.  This  accom- 
plished, he  counted  on  being  able  to  ward 
off  an  English  descent  on  the  French  coast, 
if  one  were  attempted,  —  which  seemed  un- 
likely, —  and  to  detach  the  larger  part  of  his 
Western  troops  for  service  against  Russia. 
A  desperate  hope,  quickly  blasted  by  Sir 
John  French's  masterly  retreat  and  General 
Joffre's  victorious  strategy.  One  morning  the 
Kaiser's  scouts  looked  gloatingly  down  on 
Paris  from  the  terrace  at  Saint-Germain,  as 


154    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

on  a  treasure  which  they  had  only  to  stretch 
out  their  hand  to  grasp;  the  next  day  those 
scouts  and  all  the  Kaiser's  corps  were  hur- 
rying back  from  the  Marne  to  the  Aisne. 
William  had  the  satisfaction  of  sneering  at 
"England's  contemptible  little  army";  but 
Sir  John  French  might  well  ask:  "If  eighty 
thousand  English  soldiers  sufficed  to  check 
eight  hundred  thousand  Germans,  is  'con- 
temptible' the  fittest  word  to  apply  to  them?" 
From  that  time  on,  the  Germans  have 
never  disguised  the  fact  that  they  regarded 
England  as  their  chief  adversary,  whom  they 
vowed  to  destruction.  More  than  once,  the 
Kaiser  strove  to  inveigle  France  and  Russia, 
either  singly  or  together,  to  make  a  separate 
peace,  which  would  allow  him  to  deal  with 
England  alone;  but  both  Russia  and  France 
held  true  to  their  compact.  The  German 
wrath  against  England  was  no  sudden  out- 
break of  hysteria  in  which  one  utters  vain 
ravings;  it  was  deliberately  stimulated  and 
fostered  and  passed  on. 


MENDACITY  15^ 

Lissauer  popularized  it  in  a  "Hymn  of 
Hate,"  to  be  sung  by  civilians  at  their  gath- 
erings and  by  soldiers  on  the  march  or  in  the 
trenches;  and  the  Kaiser  decorated  Lissauer 
for  this  addition  to  the  hymnal  of  Kultur. 
Journalists,  politicians,  bureaucrats,  profes- 
sors, retired  army  officers,  vied  with  each 
other  in  hurling  invectives  against  the  Eng- 
lish. They  even  stooped  to  borrow  some  of 
Napoleon's  taunts — "  perfidious  Albion,"  "  na- 
tion of  shopkeepers":  and  this  was  not  un- 
natural, because  the  Kaiser  had  unwittingly 
involved  himself  in  those  British  toils  which 
had  slowly  strangled  and  slain  Napoleon. 

If  Kultur  did  not  distort  the  vision  of  its 
possessors  whenever  they  look  away  from  the 
mirror  which  reflects  themselves,  the  Kaiser 
might  have  meditated  on  certain  historic 
coincidences.  At  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  it  was  England,  a  small  and  not 
populous  country,  which  shattered  the  world- 
empire  of  Spain.  A  hundred  years  later,  when 
Louis  XIV  lorded  it  over  half  of  Europe,  it 


156    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

was  again  England  who  shattered  the  power 
of  France.  Another  century  passed  and  Eng- 
land, the  head  of  the  European  coalition, 
which  but  for  her  would  have  dissolved  in- 
gloriously,  smote  Napoleon,  whose  empire 
stretched  from  the  Dnieper  to  Cadiz.  His- 
tory may  not  repeat  itself  in  William's  Atro- 
cious War  of  1914;  and  yet  a  historian  cannot 
fail  to  perceive  that  England  is  for  the  fourth 
time  championing  Liberty  against  a  would-be 
world-despot.  Hitherto  the  stars  in  their 
courses  have  fought  for  her. 

Very  quickly  the  Prussian  mask  fell.  It 
was  not  French  Revenge,  not  the  Slavic  Peril, 
against  which  William  made  war,  it  was  Eng- 
land. Delenda  est  Britannia! —  Britain  must 
be  wiped  out !  —  that  was  the  inspiration  of 
the  long  years  of  military  preparation,  of  the 
creation  of  a  great  German  Navy,  of  the  toast 
to  "The  Day,"  of  the  truculence  of  the  Ger- 
man reptile  press  and  of  the  Kaiser's  amia- 
ble references  to  peace.  He  had  not  intended, 
however,  to  attack  England  until  he  had  dis- 


MENDACITY  157 

posed  of  France  and  Russia;  but  his  own 
bungling  diplomacy  ruined  his  scheme.  Bis- 
marck always  arranged  it  so  as  to  fight  only 
one  enemy  at  a  time :  but  William,  knowing 
better  than  Bismarck  the  rules  of  statecraft, 
waited  until  all  his  enemies  would  unite  to 
take  the  field  against  him  before  he  declared 
war  on  one  of  them. 

Nothing  comparable  to  the  frenzied  out- 
cries of  the  Germans,  when  they  found  that 
they  had  leaped  in  the  dark  into  a  world-war, 
has  been  heard  in  modern  times.  They  raged 
at  England's  "betrayal,"  berating  her  for  not 
telling  them  that  she  would  keep  her  pledge 
to  Belgium,  a  rage  which  I  have  likened  to 
that  of  a  footpad  who  is  interrupted  by  the 
appearance  of  a  policeman. 

More  interesting,  however,  were  the  ex- 
pressions of  utter  amazement  which  the  Ger- 
mans sent  up  on  perceiving  that  civilized 
people  everywhere  abhorred  the  German  vio- 
lation of  Belgium  and  the  sequent  atrocities. 
Their  amazement,  at  least,  was  genuine;  it 


158    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

is  an  electric  torch  by  which  we  can  explore 
the  labyrinth  of  Kultur.  They  did  not,  they 
could  not  understand  how  any  foreigner  could 
be  so  foolish  as  to  suppose  that  a  treaty  was 
more  than  a  scrap  of  paper,  if  its  observance 
incommoded  Germany. 

Among  many  manifestations  of  this  sur- 
prise none  equaled  the  address  issued  early 
in  October,  1914,  by  the  Ninety-three  Intel- 
lectuals. "As  heralds  of  truth"  these  men, 
who  had  enjoyed  a  reputation  as  pillars  of 
German  scholarship,  spoke  the  words  they 
were  bidden  to  speak.  Here  are  the  heads  of 
their  denials:  — 

It  is  not  true  that  Germany  Is  guilty  of  having 
caused  this  war.  Neither  the  people,  the  Gov- 
ernment, nor  the  Kaiser,  wanted  war.  Ger- 
many did  her  utmost  to  prevent  it;  for  this 
assertion  the  world  has  documentary  proof.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  we  trespassed  in  neutral 
Belgium.  It  has  been  proved  that  France  and 
England  had  resolved  on  such  a  trespass,  and  it 
has  likewise  been  proved  that  Belgium  had 
agreed  to  their  doing  so.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  the  life  and  property  of  a 


MENDACITY  159 

single  Belgian  citizen  was  Injured  by  our  sol- 
diers without  the  bitterest  self-defense  having 
made  It  necessary.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  our  troops  treated  Louvain 
brutally.  Furious  Inhabitants  having  fallen 
upon  them  treacherously  In  their  quarters,  our 
troops,  with  aching  hearts,  were  obliged  to  fire 
a  part  of  the  town  as  a  punishment.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  our  warfare  pays  no  respect 
to  international  laws.  It  knows  no  undisci- 
plined cruelty.  .  .  . 

It  is  not  true  that  the  combat  against  our  so- 
called  Militarism  Is  not  a  combat  against  our  civ- 
ilization [Kultur],  as  our  enemies  hypocritically 
pretend  it  is.  Were  it  not  for  German  Militarism, 
German  Civilization  [Kultur]  would  long  since 
have  been  extirpated.  .  .  . 

We  shall  search  in  vain  for  any  counterpart 

to  this  manifesto,  which  proved,  as  nothing 

else  could  prove,  the  complete  subservience 

of  the  German  university  professors  to  the 

Kaiser    and    his    Ring.     The    Government 

cracked  the  whip,  and  the  Ninety-three  fell 

into  line,  clicked  their  heels  together,  saluted, 

and   repeated   their   formulas.    Not   in   our 

generation  will  German  scholarship  recover 


iGo     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

its  prestige  after  such  an  exhibition.  We  were 
told  that  German  scholars  were  impersonal, 
impartial,  objective  seekers  for  truth  — 
whether  that  truth  were  in  science  or  in  re- 
ligion or  in  the  humanities.  What  becomes 
of  that  boast  when  Harnack  and  Haeckel  and 
Ostwald  and  Eduard  Meyer  sign  such  a  paper 
as  this,  containing  statements  not  only  unver- 
ified but  unverifiable,  not  only  doubtful  but 
false .?  What  credence  will  non-Germans  give 
hereafter  to  Harnack  and  the  Ninety-three 
when  they  discourse  on  their  specialties? 
If  Harnack  could  sign  his  name  to  the  denial, 
"//  is  not  true  that  we  trespassed  in  neutral 
Belgium,"  how  can  we  trust  his  assertions  in 
the  Higher  Criticism.?  When  we  turn  back  to 
the  works  which  brought  these  men  distinc- 
tion, we  shall  see  the  shadow  of  suspicion  on 
every  page:  for  we  shall  remember  that  the 
mind  which  produced  them  was  of  such  nature 
—  call  it  essentially  unscientific  or  untruth- 
ful —  that  it  adopted  eagerly  the  false  state- 
ments of  the  Address. 


MENDACITY  161 

Incidentally,  the  Ninety-three  confirm  two 
facts  which  many  German  apologists  try  to 
evade :  first,  that,  but  for  German  Militarism, 
German  Kultur  "would  long  since  have  been 
extirpated";  and,  secondly,  that  German 
warfare  "knows  no  undisciplined  cruelty." 
The  cruelty  it  practices  is  premeditated,  dis- 
ciplined —  in  a  word,  Frightfulness. 

Kultur  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  process  of 
breeding  in  and  in.  It  created  a  truly  won- 
derful efficiency  among  Germans  in  Germany ; 
but,  being  based  on  egotism,  it  rendered  them 
less  and  less  capable  of  understanding  other 
races;  and  this  incapacity  increased  until 
they  made  no  pretense  of  understanding  them. 
They  assumed  that,  as  non-German  peoples 
were  inferior,  their  "psychology"  did  not 
matter. 

Germany's  decision  to  violate  Belgium 
dated  from  many  years  back.  She  constructed 
a  mesh  of  railroads  to  the  Belgian  frontiers, 
massed  troops  and  supplies  there,  took  it  to 
be  axiomatic   that   her  armies  would   cross 


i62     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

there  —  a  "necessity/'  as  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg  baldly  declared.  Accordingly,  her  amaze- 
ment was  unfeigned  when  in  her  egomania 
she  made  the  discovery  that  the  rest  of  the 
world  had  not  been  assuming  that  Teutonic 
plans  and  ambitions,  and  those  alone,  should 
monopolize  the  attention  of  mankind.  She 
was  as  much  astonished  that  foreigners  should 
be  shocked  by  her  violation  of  treaties  and 
by  her  damnably  deliberate  application  of 
Frightfulness,  as  Australian  cannibals  would 
be  to  learn  that  cannibalism  was  abhorrent 
to  civilized  men.  The  naivete  of  her  aston- 
ishment measures  the  insoluble  residue  of 
barbarism  in  the  German  nature  —  even  in 
the  Ninety-three  Intellectuals. 

'*The  Prussian,"  Goethe  is  reported  to 
have  said,  "is  cruel  by  birth;  civilization  will 
make  him  ferocious."  Goethe  was  not  a 
Prussian,  but  he  will  be  hailed  as  a  prophet, 
if  in  the  far  retrospect  the  ferocity  which  the 
Prussianized  Germans  have  displayed  in  the 
Atrocious  War  shall  prove  to  be  the  inevi- 


MENDACITY  163 

table  reaction  of  Civilization  on  Kultur.  The 
champions  of  Kultur,  who  had  been  telling 
each  other  that  they  were  the  greatest  beings 
in  the  world,  who  have  even  invented  a  new 
class  of  mammals,  Supermen,  to  which  they 
alone  belonged,  were  maddened  when  Civili- 
zation, which  they  discarded,  dared  to  plant 
itself  in  the  path  of  Kultur. 

Besides  cruelty,  the  Prussians  possessed  in 
a  superlative  degree  another  barbaric  trait. 
The  late  Charles  Francis  Adams,  writing  a 
few  days  before  his  death  in  March,  191 5, 
criticizing  the  plea  of  German  apologists  that 
Americans  did  not  understand  because  they 
could  not  "think  like  Germans,"  said:  — 

Suspecting  this  in  my  own  case,  I  have  of  late 
confined  my  reading  on  this  topic  almost  ex- 
clusively to  German  sources.  I  have  been  taking 
a  course  in  Nietzsche  and  Treitschke,  as  also 
in  the  German  "Denkschrift,"  illumined  by  ex- 
cerpts from  the  German  papers  in  this  country 
and  the  official  utterances  of  Chancellor  von 
Bethmann-Hollweg.  The  result  has  been  most 
disastrous.  It  has  utterly  destroyed  my  capacity 
for  judicial  consideration.    I  can  only  say  that 


i64    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

if  what  I  find  In  those  sources  is  the  capacity 
to  think  Germanlcally,  I  would  rather  cease 
thinking  at  all.  It  is  the  absolute  negation  of 
everything  which  in  the  past  tended  to  the  ele- 
vation of  mankind,  and  the  installation  in  place 
thereof  of  a  system  of  thorough  dishonesty, 
emphasized  by  brutal  stupidity.  There  is  a  low 
cunning  about  it,  too,  which  is  to  me  in  the  last 
degree  repulsive. 

Low  Cunning  —  that  is  the  twin  of  Cruelty 
in  the  Prussianized  German  nature.  There  is 
a  cunning  —  that  of  the  politicians  of  the 
Renaissance,  for  instance,  or  that  generated 
by  ecclesiasticism  —  which  implies  that  its 
adepts  have  passed  over  the  crest  of  civiliza- 
tion and  are  sinking  into  decline.  Their  souls 
being  dead,  they  go  on  living  by  their  wits. 
Instead  of  wisdom  they  practice  worldly 
wisdom.  It  is  diamond  cut  diamond  among 
them. 

In  contrast  with  this  civilized  cunning 
stands  that  of  the  savage  or  the  barbarian. 
We  know  it  by  its  crudeness,  its  naivete,  its 
inherent  inefficiency.  The  barbarian  who  re- 


MENDACITY  165 

sorts  to  it  half  suspects  that  it  does  not  fool 
his  enemy;  but  he  cannot  discover  why  it 
fails,  and  he  lacks  skill  or  sophistication  to 
devise  something  subtle  that  will  work.   The 
German  nature  has  never  been  subtle,  and 
Kultur,  by  reducing  the  Prussianized  Ger- 
mans to  a  condition  of  self-centred  isolation, 
in  which  they  could  not  penetrate  the  mo- 
tives and  ideals  of  other  races,  limited  them 
to  a  barbarian  cunning.    To  the  weak  and 
timid,  lying  serves  as  a  sort  of  protective 
coloration.    But  the  Prussianized  Germans, 
with  eight  million  soldiers  under  arms,  were 
neither,  and  they  employed  mendacity  bluntly 
as  a  weapon  for  overcoming  neutrals  whom 
they  could  not  bombard  into  silence  or  as- 
phyxiate by  poisonous  gases.    To  devise  a 
thoroughly  successful  lie,  however,  calls  for 
talent  of  a  very  different  order  from  that 
which  fabricates  Krupp's  howitzers. 

The  parent  German  lie  from  which  the 
others  sprang  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  dec- 
laration that  the  Allies  attacked  Germany 


i66    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

intending  to  destroy  her,  and  so  forced  her  to 
act  on  the  defensive,  as  she  was  notoriously- 
opposed  to  war.  What  is  the  truth  as  the 
documents  have  shown  it?  It  is,  first,  that 
Austria  mobilized  her  army  against  Serbia 
before  Russia  began  to  mobilize  her  South- 
eastern Army  Corps;  next,  that  Germany 
threatened  Russia  with  war  unless  she  de- 
mobilized ;  thirdly,  that  the  Czar  pledged  him- 
self to  commit  no  hostile  act  until  time  should 
be  allowed  for  a  conference  of  the  Powers  on 
the  Austro-Serb  quarrel ;  but,  finally,  that  the 
German  Emperor  refused  to  consent  to  any 
delay,  and  declared  war  on  Russia. 

Even  more  monstrous  is  the  German  as- 
sertion that  the  Western  Powers  were  the 
aggressors.  A  nation  which  premeditates  war 
on  a  neighbor  makes  ready  before  it  strikes. 
France  in  July,  1914,  was  not  only  unpre- 
pared to  attack  Germany,  but  to  defend  her- 
self against  attack.  If,  as  the  Germans  allege, 
she  had  agreed  with  Belgium  to  make  a  sud- 
den invasion  into  Germany,  how  did  it  hap- 


MENDACITY  167 

pen  that,  when  the  German  thunderboh  fell, 
France  had  no  troops  in  place  to  give  Belgium 
immediate  succor?  How  did  it  happen  that, 
on  the  contrary,  French  troops  were  so  back- 
ward that  they  could  not  come  up  in  time 
to  give  really  valid  assistance  before  Eastern 
Belgium  was  lost?  In  Lorraine  and  in  the 
Vosges  —  where  large  bodies  of  French  troops 
were  always  stationed  —  they  did  check  the 
German  onslaught;  but  when  they  needed 
reserves,  they  had  to  wait  for  them  during 
terribly  critical  days  —  waiting  which  would 
not  have  been  necessary  if  the  French  Army 
had  been  prepared.  A  nation  which  starts  a 
vast  aggressive  war  without  looking  to  its 
supply  of  ammunition  is  crazy.  The  supply 
of  the  French  gave  out  within  a  month,  and 
they  were  thereby  prevented  from  forcing 
the  Germans,  who  were  in  full  retreat  from 
the  Marne,  straight  back  to  their  frontier. 
This  lack  it  was  which  enabled  the  Germans 
to  entrench  along  the  Aisne  and  in  the  Ar- 
gonne.  The  pretense  that  the  French  armies 


i68     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

were  straining  at  the  leash  to  attack  Ger- 
many is  utterly  false.  An  aggressor  who 
counts  on  surprising  his  antagonist  does  not 
withdraw  his  army  six  miles  behind  his  own 
frontier  and  wait  for  the  antagonist  to  begin. 
France  did  that  in  the  vain  hope  of  preserving 
peace. 

Still  more  preposterous  is  the  German  in- 
sinuation that  England  was  the  ringleader  of 
the  Allies  in  their  plot  to  overthrow  Germany. 
For  some  five  centuries  at  least  the  English 
have  been  proficient  in  figures,  and  we  may 
safely  affirm  that,  in  all  their  computations, 
they  have  never  discovered  that  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  thousand  equal  eight  millions. 
Yet  that  was  the  disproportion  between  the 
immediately  available  English  troops  and 
the  German,  when  Emperor  William  entered 
upon  his  specious  "aggressive-defensive"  war. 
True,  the  British  Navy  had  just  completed  its 
annual  manoeuvres,  but  these  were  no  more 
intended  as  a  threat  against  Germany  than 
the  annual  field  exercises  of  the  German  Army 


MENDACITY  169 

had  been  a  direct  challenge  to  Russia  or  to 
France.  In  his  wildest  fit  of  megalomania, 
John  Bull  would  never  have  boasted  that  one 
British  soldier  was  a  match  for  fifty  Germans; 
and  yet  this  is  what  the  Germans  attribute 
to  him  when  they  allege  that  he  forced  the 
struggle  upon  them. 

The  sequence  of  events  which  we  have 
traced  shows  that  England  actually  waited 
until  the  Germans  had  invaded  Belgium  and 
France  before  deciding  to  fight,  and  that  then 
her  preparations  for  sending  troops  across 
the  Channel  were  so  inadequate  that  her  ex- 
pedition could  not  check  the  Germans  in  Bel- 
gium and  reached  France  only  in  time  to  take 
part  in  the  great  retreat.  The  Kaiser  cor- 
rectly described  her  eighty  thousand  men  on 
the  Continent  as  a  "contemptible  little  army," 
for  he  reckoned  by  millions.  These  facts  dis- 
pose of  the  charge  that  England  either  made 
or  planned  an  aggressive  war  against  Ger- 
many. Even  her  mighty  Navy  did  not  at 
once  take  the  offensive. 


lyo     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

German  mendacity  has  exhausted  its  in- 
genuity in  inventing  pretexts  for  the  violation 
of  Belgium.  Of  these  the  most  characteristic 
is  that,  as  Belgium  was  about  to  attack  Ger- 
many, Germany  was  forced  in  self-defense  to 
attack  her  first.  This  is  as  if  a  giant  ruf- 
fian, bent  on  killing  and  robbing  a  neighbor, 
should  start  to  cross  an  intervening  lot,  and 
the  owner  of  that  lot,  a  frail  young  woman, 
should  refuse  him  passage,  whereupon  he  out- 
raged her,  and  went  on  his  murderous  way. 
And  when  people  cried  out  in  horror  at  his 
brutality,  he  retorted  that  he  acted  in  self- 
defense,  as  the  frail  young  woman  was  about 
to  outrage  him.  German  apologists  for  the 
devastation  of  Belgium  illustrate  what  I  mean 
when  I  say  that  German  mendacity  bears 
witness  to  the  insoluble  barbaric  residue  in 
the  German  nature.  Bethmann-HoUweg's  first 
avowal  that  "necessity''  forced  them  to  in- 
vade Belgium,  and  that  it  was  wrong,  cannot 
be  explained  away.  The  future  student  who 
tabulates  the  score  or  more  of  "justifications," 


MENDACITY  171 

some  official,  some  private,  all  mutually 
contradictory,  which  German  defenders  have 
since  devised,  will  assemble  an  unparalleled 
exhibit  of  abortive  casuistry. 

I  leave  unnoticed  the  mendacity  manu- 
factured for  home  consumption  by  the  offi- 
cial organs.  That  is  a  form  of  deception  prac- 
ticed by  all  governments  in  war-time,  and  it 
seems  to  succeed  in  proportion  to  the  inabil- 
ity of  the  people  to  think  for  themselves. 
What  shall  we  infer  as  to  the  intelligence  of 
German  troops  who  were  told  on  reaching 
Brussels  that  they  were  in  Paris.?  How  shall 
we  estimate  the  credulity  of  the  German  pub- 
lic which  was  informed  that  the  Kaiser  and 
his  Army  had  taken  Paris,  but  had  refused 
to  enter  it  in  order  to  escape  the  typhus  fever 
and  cholera  which  raged  there  ?  In  any  other 
country  but  Germany  we  should  suspect  that 
the  official  purveyors  of  mendacity  rated  their 
countrymen's  gullibility  very  high. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    PLOT  TO   GERMANIZE   AMERICA 

A  Countryman  returning  home  one  winter's  day,  found 
a  Snake  by  the  hedge-side,  half  dead  with  cold.  Taking 
compassion  on  the  creature,  he  laid  it  in  his  bosom  and 
brought  it  home  to  his  fireside  to  revive  it.  No  sooner  had 
the  warmth  restored  it,  than  it  began  to  attack  the  chil- 
dren of  the  cottage.  Upon  this  the  Countryman,  whose 
compassion  had  saved  its  life,  took  up  a  mattock  and  laid 
the  Snake  dead  at  his  feet.  —  Those  who  return  evil  for 
good,  may  expect  their  neighbor's  pity  to  be  worn  out  at 
last. 

JEso'p's  Fables. 

WE  Americans  have  other  means  by 
which  to  treat  German  proficiency 
in  the  art  of  deception;  for  when  we  raised 
a  cry  of  indignation  over  the  "scrap  of  paper" 
crime,  and  then  a  cry  of  horror  over  the 
atrocities  in  Belgium,  the  German  Govern- 
ment dispatched  to  this  country  a  squad  of 
apologists  and  plotters,  who,  in  collusion  with 
Germans  already  here,  conducted  such  a 
campaign  as  has  never  been  seen  before  —  a 


GERMANIZING   AMERICA      173 

campaign  which  on  its  criminal  side  would 
not  have  been  tolerated  by  an  Administra- 
tion which  had  possessed  either  courage  or 
regard  for  American  honor.  Only  once  be- 
fore in  the  history  of  this  Republic  had  its 
President  stood  by  while  those  who  were 
plotting  its  subversion  worked  unchecked; 
that  President  was  James  Buchanan. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  the  German 
propagandists  were  plotting  for  something 
much  more  tangible  than  America's  "moral" 
sympathy.  They  addressed  us  first  in  the 
tone  of  one  whose  feelings  have  been  hurt  by 
the  unexpected  coolness  of  a  "dear  friend"; 
but  when  they  found  that  their  explanations 
did  not  move  us,  they  resumed  their  natural 
Prussian  voice,  rough,  truculent,  and  defiant. 
They  told  us  that  we  were  not  a  nation,  but 
a  mob,  at  the  mercy  of  the  mob  spirit,  which 
was  then  controlled  by  British  lies.  They 
warned  us  that  William  II  would  lose  no  time 
in  punishing  us  after  he  had  vanquished  the 
Allies.    They  argued  very  little,  supposing 


174     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

that  unsupported  assertions  or  flat  denials 
were  more  effective.  They  resorted  freely 
to  their  characteristic  method  of  attributing 
to  others  baseness  which  they  themselves 
practiced.  The  hirelings  of  their  reptile  press, 
for  instance,  charged  the  great  American 
newspapers  with  being  controlled  by  "Brit- 
ish gold,"  and  the  subsidized  spokesmen  of 
the  Kaiser  insinuated  that  our  public  leaders 
were  under  British  influence. 

Even  in  that  crisis,  involving  the  future  of 
civilized  man  on  this  earth,  one  could  not  help 
smiling  at  the  ludicrous  efforts  of  the  Prus- 
sianized spellbinders  to  coax  the  Americans 
to  their  cause.  They  repelled  the  charge  that 
Germany  had  rather  a  scant  allowance  of 
freedom,  by  asserting  that,  on  the  contrary, 
the  Germans  exercised  a  much  ampler  elec- 
tive right  than  did  the  British  or  the  Amer- 
icans. The  Kaiser,  they  declared,  instead  of 
being  an  autocrat,  enjoyed  less  authority  than^ 
the  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
charge  that  Militarism  dominated  the  Father- 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA       175 

land  was  a  calumny;  nothing  more  Demo- 
cratic could  be  imagined  than  the  German 
military  system.  Equally  baseless  were  hos- 
tile references  to  Junkerism :  there  had  been 
a  time  when  perhaps  the  Junkers  exerted  a 
trifling  influence  on  Prussia,  but,  like  the 
dodo,  the  Junker  was  now  an  extinct  spe- 
cies. 

Equally  false,  maliciously  false,  was  the 
impression  common  in  America  that  the  Ho- 
henzollern  had  been  an  ambitious  dynasty, 
warlike,  cruel  towards  victims  too  weak  to  de- 
fend themselves,  perfidious,  and  unscrupulous. 
Most  diligent  were  the  Kaiser's  paid  apolo- 
gists in  drawing  a  portrait  of  him  that  would 
fascinate  Americans.  They  glossed  over  his 
bellicose  speeches;  they  interpreted  his  fond- 
ness for  rattling  the  scabbard  as  playfulness. 
A  hater  of  England,  he?  Why,  he  wore  Eng- 
lish tennis  flannels,  and  prided  himself  on 
equaling  the  English  at  yachting.  As  we  fol- 
lowed their  descriptions  of  him,  his  glistening 
helmet  and  military  uniform,  and  sword  and 


176     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

spurs,  and  even  his  boar*s-tush  mustaches 
dropped  away,  and  he  stood  there  in  a  gray- 
Quaker  suit  and  broad-brimmed  hat,  the 
reincarnation  of  William  Penn,  with  the  con- 
ventional smile  playing  round  his  lips. 

Such  propaganda  could  originate  only  in 
minds  which  took  it  for  granted  that  Ameri- 
cans of  intelligence  —  if  there  were  any  — 
knew  nothing  about  German  history,  politics, 
or  conditions,  and  that  all  other  Americans 
believed  what  they  were  told,  just  as  if  they 
were  Germans.  The  propagandists  dimly  per- 
ceived that  the  methods,  which  worked  to 
perfection  at  home,  were  ineffectual  here ;  but 
instead  of  changing  their  tactics,  they  con- 
tinued to  use  them  with  redoubled  vigor. 
Their  motto  was:  "If  a  bad  lie  does  not  suc- 
ceed, reinforce  it  by  a  worse." 

Dr.  Dernburg,  whose  aptitudes  commended 
him  to  the  Kaiser,  came  over  as  the  special 
Imperial  envoy  to  cajole  the  Americans; 
and  for  half  a  year  the  competition  be- 
tween him   and  Ambassador   Bernstorff   at 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      177 

Washington  produced  utterances  hitherto 
unmatched  on  this  side  of  the  water.  Dr. 
Dernburg's  forte  lay  in  misquoting  or  in 
garbling  documents,  which  he  would  then 
discuss  with  an  assumed  judicial  air,  and  draw 
from  their  mutilated  remains  conclusions 
opposite  from  those  which  their  authors  in- 
tended. And  when  his  ruse  was  exposed,^  he 
went  on  brazenly  repeating  it,  as  if  he  were 
confident  that  those  who  listened  to  him  had 
no  flair  for  truth.  Where  he  did  not  falsify, 
as  in  his  quotations  from  Gladstone,  he  spun 
specious  arguments  like  those  against  British 
Navalism,  or  those  intended  to  justify  Ger- 
man violations  of  law  and  humanity.  To  his 
highly  Kultured  moral  sense,  the  Lusitania 
massacre  brought  reassuring  proof  that  Gott 
still  blessed  the  Teutonic  enterprise.  Am- 
bassador BemstorfFs  exploits  need  not  be 
rehearsed  here.   It  is  only  fair,  however,  to 

*  See  the  exposure  of  him  in  the  New  York  Sunday 
Times  by  Miss  Agnes  Repplier  and  Dr.  J.  W.  White. 
Reprinted  as  a  pamphlet. 


1 78     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

quote  from  an  interview  which  he  gave  to  the 
press  on  August  31, 1914 —  mark  the  date:  — 

1.  The  war  is  won.  The  coalition  has  been 
defeated  in  Western  Europe.  German  defeat 
on  land  is  now  out  of  the  question. 

2.  The  aims  of  the  German  General  Staff 
have  been  attained.  The  Allies  have  been  so 
badly  and  so  suddenly  worsted  that  Germany  is 
free  to  withdraw,  as  she  has  begun  to  do,  great 
numbers  of  men  to  ward  off  the  Russian  inva- 
sion.^ 

Y  Many  other  accredited  agents  of  the  Kaiser 

would  deserve  mention  in  a  thorough  study 
of  the  apostles  of  Kultur  in  America,  men 
chosen  because  they  best  represented  their 
Imperial  master;  but  I  pass  over  here  the 
experts  of  the  "reptile  press,"  the  renegade 
Jews,  the  paid  hack-writers,  the  official  bu- 
reaucrats and  spies,  and  mention  only  the 
professors.  Some  of  these  had  been  planted 
in  the  United  States  a  good  while  before; 
.  others  were  sent  over  to  do  special  work.  A 
world-authority   on   the   altruistic   emotions 

*  Boston  Herald,  September  i,  1914. 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA       179 

of  the  caterpillar,  let  us  say,  would  pull 
the  wires  to  be  invited  to  lecture  at  one  of 
our  universities;  and  when  he  addressed  his 
American  audience,  hungry  for  entomological 
information,  he  cruelly  abandoned  the  cater- 
pillar and  poured  forth  a  pro-German  appeal. 
The  crudeness  of  this  trick  also  suggests  the 
barbarian,  and  its  employer  doubtless  won- 
dered why  he  could  not  keep  on  fooling  Amer- 
icans with  so  primitive  a  device.  But  there 
were  professors  of  other  kinds.  One  ex- 
pounded the  ethics  of  Kultur;  another  was 
sly  and  casuistical;  a  third  frankly  berated 
Americans.  There  were  even  spurious  pro- 
fessors and  shady  missionaries  of  Prussianism 
who  for  excellent  reasons  adopted  aliases. 

Before  this  campaign  had  been  long  under 
way,  it  became  evident  that  the  Kaiser's 
agents  had  a  double  purpose.  They  worked 
not  only  to  propitiate  American  public  opin- 
ion, in  the  hope  that  it  would  voluntarily  es- 
pouse the  German  cause,  but  also  to  organ- 
ize the  German-Americans  in  this  country 


i8o     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

into  a  compact  political  party,  which  should 
terrorize,  if  it  could  not  persuade  the  Gov- 
ernment to  aid  Germany  by  direct  or  indirect 
means.  As  time  went  on,  these  conpirators 
grew  brazen.  They  held  meetings  at  which 
they  openly  preached  sedition,  and  through  the 
press  they  announced  that  they  and  the  Irish- 
Americans  would  seize  control  of  the  country 
and  rule  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  HohenzoUern 
dynasty.  Some  of  the  most  exuberant  of  them 
seem  to  have  had  a  vision  of  a  German  Im- 
perial Prince,  sitting  in  the  White  House  as 
Viceroy  of  the  Kaiser. 

Few  flights  of  the  imagination  could  be 
more  comical  than  that  which  suggests  that 
the  Irish-Americans  should  unite  with  the 
Germans  in  a  league  to  be  dominated  by 
the  Germans.  The  Irish,  who  have  often  de- 
clared the  somewhat  slack  rule  of  the  Eng- 
lish in  Ireland  too  exasperating  to  be  borne, 
would  hardly  find  the  strait-jacket  regime 
of  Prussia  comfortable:  and  with  their  native 
talent  for  politics,  which  has  given  them  power, 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      181 

local  and  national,  out  of  all  proportion  to 
their  numbers,  they  are  not  likely  to  abdicate 
in  favor  of  the  German-Americans,  who  have 
shown  comparatively  little  ability  as  prac- 
tical politicians.  The  Germans  in  Tammany 
Hall  are  controlled  by' the  Irish;  and  that 
will  be  the  relative  position  of  the  two  races 
whatever  be  the  terms  of  their  alliance.  Ger- 
man conspirators  here,  who  flatter  them- 
selves that  the  Irish  will  sacrifice  their  posi- 
tion in  America  in  order  to  promote  the 
ambition  of  a  Prussian  or  any  other  monarch 
in  Europe,  are  hopelessly  dense,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  bargain  they  will  perceive  that 
the  Irish  have  exploited  them  for  their  own 
purposes  here.  The  Irish  intend  to  remain 
Americans. 

The  Kaiser's  agents  did  not  stop  at  openly 
preaching  sedition.  They  spread  secretly  a 
network  of  violence  such  as  has  never  before 
been  attempted  by  aliens  in  a  foreign  coun- 
try—  a  conspiracy  all  the  more  monstrous 
because  Germany  was  officially  at  peace  with 


i82     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

the  United  States  and  pretended  to  desire 
American  good-will.  Acting  under  instruc- 
tions which  were  traced  to  German  and  Aus- 
trian officials,  the  Teutonic  miscreants  placed 
bombs  on  outgoing  steamers,  blew  up  muni- 
tions factories,  resorted  to  the  intimidation 
of  capitalists,  organized  strikes  and  sabotage, 
tried  to  wreck  railroads,  and  made  this  coun- 
try a  base  for  hostile  operations  against  the 
Allies  with  whom  we  were  at  peace. 

For  effrontery  these  proceedings  have  had 
no  precedent  here.  Reverse  the  positions  of 
the  nations,  and  suppose  that  Americans, 
being  engaged  in  a  war  with  England,  should 
carry  on  a  similar  campaign  of  mendacity  and 
crime  inside  Germany,  which  was  neutral. 
The  German  Government  would  suppress  such 
conspirators  within  a  week,  and  it  would  give 
short  shrift  to  gentlemen  who  announced  that 
they  were  going  to  take  possession  of  Ger- 
many and  to  run  it  thereafter  as  an  Ameri- 
can province.  In  the  United  States,  even 
sedition  is  allowed  free  speech;  but,  if  the 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      183 

Administration  at  Washington  had  not  been 
both  supine  and  self-seeking,  it  would  have 
acted  so  decisively  that  the  Teutonic  con- 
spirators would  have  been  promptly  checked. 
It  remained  for  President  Wilson  to  announce 
to  Congress  that  as  a  result  of  fifteen  months' 
non-interference  on  his  part  there  had  grown 
up  a  formidable  body  of  sedition,  composed 
of  persons  whom  he  omitted  to  designate. 

Examples  abound  of  the  low  cunning  in 
which  Germans  put  their  trust.  When  they 
perceived  that  their  direct  assault  on  Ameri- 
can public  opinion  made  no  headway,  they 
discarded  the  hyphen  and  the  name  "Ger- 
man,'' and  formed  organizations  to  uphold 
"American"  truth,  "American"  interests, 
"American"  national  ideals,  or  "American" 
neutrality;  so  rogues  ply  their  trade  under 
assumed  names. 

Two  manifestations  of  Kulturized  craft 
ought  not  to  be  passed  over.  When  the  Brit- 
ish blockade  succeeded  in  cutting  off  most  of 
Germany's  food  supplies  by  sea,  the  Teutons 


i84    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

set  up  a  whimper  over  the  cruelty  of  starv- 
ing to  death  the  women  and  children  of  an 
entire  nation.  Coming  from  them,  whose 
home  government,  after  wrecking  Belgium, 
left  the  Belgians  to  starve,  this  plea  for 
humanity  was  peculiarly  indecent.  Hohen- 
zollern  Frightfulness  towards  the  Belgians 
caused  humane  persons  throughout  the  world 
to  contribute  at  the  rate  of  fifty  million  dollars 
a  year  to  clothe  and  feed  those  victims  for 
whose  maintenance  the  Germans  themselves 
were  responsible.  What  part  of  the  supplies 
the  Germans  diverted,  we  shall  probably 
never  know;  but  we  see  how  they  used  the 
desperate  sufferings  of  the  Belgians  as  a  de- 
vice for  saving  four  or  five  million  dollars  a 
month  for  the  benefit  of  their  own  Army. 
The  whimper  of  the  Kaiser's  agents  in  the 
United  States  was  all  the  more  nauseating, 
because  at  the  very  time  when  we  were  be- 
sought to  relieve  the  women  and  children  of 
Germany  from  famine,  the  German  Chancel- 
lor and  other  high  spokesmen  of  the  Empire 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      185 

kept  declaring  that  there  was  a  superabun- 
dance of  food,  and  that  Germany  could  never 
be  starved  out.  Who  lied  ? 

During  the  American  Civil  War,  while  the 
Union  forces  were  slowly  exhausting  the  Con- 
federacy by  constriction,  there  was  no  talk 
of  allowing  the  British  or  French  to  send  food 
to  the  Southern  women  and  children ;  and  in 
1870,  after  the  Prussians,  having  hemmed  in 
Paris,  proceeded  to  starve  it  out,  they  would 
have  guffawed  at  the  suggestion  that  they 
should  let  supplies  for  the  famished  Parisians 
pass.  They  knew  that  every  hungry  mouth 
diminished  the  dwindling  store  of  provisions, 
and  that  every  empty  stomach  lessened  the 
power  of  resistance.  But  when  the  tables  were 
turned,  if  they  were  turned,  —  and  we  have 
the  Chancellor's  word  for  it,  that  there  was 
no  lack  of  food,  —  the  Germans  whined  that 
they  must  be  spared  the  effects  of  a  block- 
ade, although  they  themselves  and  all  other 
Western  nations  had  used  blockades  as  a  legiti- 
mate form  of  warfare. 


i86    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Similarly  hypocritical  was  their  campaign 
against  the  shipment  of  munitions  to  the  Al- 
lies. The  right  of  the  merchants  of  a  neutral 
country  to  sell  goods  to  belligerents  was  rec- 
ognized long  ago  in  international  law.  The 
Germans  have  always  exercised  it ;  impartially, 
too,  if  it  be  true  that  they  sold  guns  and  mu- 
nitions to  both  Russia  and  Japan  in  the  war 
of  1904-05.  Just  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Atrocious  War,  they  were  sending  shiploads 
of  arms  to  the  Mexican  revolutionists,  who, 
they  hoped,  would  involve  us  in  their  strug- 
gle and  so  prevent  us  from  interfering  in 
Europe.  With  equal  impartiality  they  sold 
their  wares  to  Turks  and  to  some  of  the  Bal- 
kan Christians  up  to  191 2.  Krupp's  agents 
never  inquired  into  the  race,  creed,  or  politics 
of  a  good  customer.  If  the  Kaiser  himself  was 
a  stockholder  in  the  Krupp  Company,  he  had 
no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  dividends 
it  paid  him;  but  when,  through  his  inability 
to  keep  a  single  ship,  naval  or  mercantile,  on 
the  sea,  he  could  not  transport  American 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      187 

munitions  to  Germany,  his  lobby  at  Wash- 
ington and  his  agents  throughout  the  United 
States  started  an  agitation  for  an  embargo. 
These  conspirators  found  a  certain  number 
of  disloyal  public  men  in  Congress,  and  senti- 
mentalists who  mistake  the  shadow  for  the 
substance  and  love  to  be  duped,  to  join  them 
in  an  attempt  which,  if  it  were  successful, 
would  violate  American  neutrality,  flout  in- 
ternational law,  and  be  an  admission  that  a 
foreign  monarch  controls  the  lawmaking  of 
this  nation. 

Germany  practiced  a  peculiarly  ignoble 
form  of  deceit  in  permitting  her  subjects  who 
came  to  this  country  to  become  naturalized 
American  citizens,  with  the  tacit  understand- 
ing that,  when  they  returned  home,  they 
might  resume  their  German  citizenship.  The 
purpose  of  this  double  shuffle  was  evident 
as  soon  as  the  war  broke  out.  Germans  who 
had  resided  here  for  years,  never  hinting  that 
they  wished  to  become  Americans,  suddenly 
applied  for  naturalization  papers,  and  were 


i88    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

soon  presiding  at  pro-German  meetings  or 
editing  pro-German  journals,  and  setting 
themselves  up  as  expounders  of  the  American- 
ism of  Washington  and  Lincoln.  One  hardly 
knows  which  to  despise  more,  the  deceit  or 
the  impudence. 

The  final  revelation  as  to  Prussianized 
Germany  came  when  the  world  realized  the 
almost  limitless  extension  of  the  German  spy 
system.  The  spy,  as  trained  and  employed 
by  Germany,  is  the  meanest  of  creatures.  It 
would  be  a  libel  on  the  microbes  of  an  infec- 
tious disease  to  compare  him  to  them.  They 
do  their  work  as  all  inanimate  matter  does; 
but  he  is  a  sentient  being  with  a  perverted  will, 
who  simulates  the  truth  which  his  heart  is 
incapable  of  feeling,  and  dissimulates  the 
falsehood  which  is  his  second  nature,  in  order 
to  prepare  the  ruin  of  the  unsuspecting  per- 
sons among  whom  he  glides.  The  German 
Government  kept  spies  in  every  court;  it 
planted  them  in  foreign  corporations;  it  used 
them  to  trail  the  intentions  of  other  govern- 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      189 

ments  and  of  politicians;  it  insinuated  them 
into  laboratories  and  mills.  They  intrigued  in 
Egypt  and  in  India  and  in  South  Africa  to 
foment  risings  against  the  English;  they  in- 
fluenced the  Japanese  against  America;  they 
laid  the  train  in  Mexico  for  an  explosion 
against  this  country;  their  burrowing  in  the 
Far  East  is  known.  Other  nations  —  Russia, 
for  instance,  and  Austria  —  have  practiced 
espionage  for  centuries,  but  never  on  such  a 
scale  or  with  such  diabolical  cynicism  or  with 
such  precision.  Neither  has  any  other  nation 
found  it  so  easy  to  persuade  those  of  its  citi- 
zens who  settled  abroad  to  consent  to  serve 
as  non-commissioned  supporters  of  the  sys- 
tem. The  Germans  who  for  business  or  pleas- 
ure resided  in  Eastern  France  or  in  Paris ;  the 
German  colonists  who  filtered  into  Western 
Poland;  those  who  overran  Italy  and  Eng- 
land, and  their  counterparts  everywhere,  had 
among  them  many  who  played  with  equal 
ease  the  roles  of  propagandist  and  of  spy. 
German  missionaries,  sent  out  to  teach  the 


190     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

heathen  the  reHgion  of  Gott,  are  ready  agents 
of  the  German  Secret  Service  Bureau. 

In  these  various  shapes  Mendacity,  which 
seems  to  be  an  indestructible  element  of  the 
German  nature,  displays  itself.  The  ominous 
fact  is  not  that  some  Germans  should  lie  or 
deceive  or  accept  the  spies'  loathsome  com- 
missions —  the  wicked  and  the  vile  are  found 
in  every  race;  the  ominous  fact  is,  not  only 
that  the  Prussianized  German  Government, 
having  elaborated  Mendacity  as  carefully  as 
they  perfected  their  Militarism,  should  find 
multitudes  eager  to  practice  it,  but  also  that 
the  German  people,  north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  should  regard  it  as  the  most  natural 
thing  in  life. 

Is  it  not  significant  that  Goethe,  who  was 
as  far  removed  as  possible  from  Prussian 
ideals,  should  embody  in  Mephistopheles  — 
the  Spirit  of  Falseness  —  this  deep-seated 
national  characteristic.''  The  substance  of  his 
Mephistopheles  was  Pan-German  and  might 
be  supplied  today  by  the  Kaiser  and  his 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      191 

Ring;  but  Goethe  himself  supplied  the  keen 
edge  and  devilish  sarcasm  which  make  Meph- 
istopheles  the  one  unapproached  creation  in 
German  dramatic  literature. 

Cruelty  and  Cunning  —  those  are  the  ends 
to  which  Kultur  logically  leads :  and  of  these 
the  more  hideous  is  Cunning.  Cruelty  denies 
the  human  bond  which  links  every  man  to 
the  race;  but  Cunning,  Mendacity,  denies 
Truth  itself.  Cruelty  may  burst  out  in  an 
excess  of  passion  and  may  be  expiated  by 
remorse,  so  far  as  there  is  any  expiation  for 
guilt  whose  victims  perish.  But  Cunning  is 
premeditated,  merciless,  too  hardened  to  be 
capable  of  remorse.  Dante,  the  terrible  ap- 
praiser of  guilt,  reserved  the  lowest  depths 
of  hell  for  the  Fraudulent  —  those  who  by 
Mendacity  betrayed  their  fellow  men. 

That  these  conspirators  have  acted  in  ruth- 
less disregard  of  the  many  Germans  in  the 
United  States  who  abhor  Prussianism  and 
wish  to  stand  loyally  by  this  country  and  its 
institutions,  was  to  be  expected;  for  every 


192     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

German  in  America  who  prefers  America  to 
Germany  is  a  refutation  of  the  claims  of  Dr. 
Dernburg  and  all  the  other  propagandists 
of  Kultur.  Quite  naturally,  these  victims  of 
persecution  and  intimidation  have  kept  si- 
lent ;  no  census  has  been  made  of  them ;  and 
the  seditious  have  not  hesitated  to  assert 
that  all  German-Americans  are  behind  their 
conspiracy.  When  the  "show-down"  comes, 
there  will  be  a  tragic  surprise  for  those 
who  have  been  banking  on  the  disloyalty  of 
any  large  number  of  persons  in  the  United 
States. 

But  Kultur  employs  a  logic  of  its  own, 
which  results  in  what  to  non-Germans  are 
contradictions  stupefyingly  bizarre.  I  have 
given  two  or  three  specimens  of  these  al- 
ready, but  there  is  another  which  the  stu- 
dent of  Teutonic  psychology  ought  not  to 
overlook. 

For  a  dozen  years  past  the  zealots  of  Kul- 
tur have  told  us  that  Germany  surpasses 
other  countries,  not  only  in  its  powerful  mili- 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      193 

tary  organization,  but  in  every  walk  of  life. 
Every  German  is  instructed  precisely  what 
he  must  do,  and  he  does  it  thoroughly.  The 
Government  directs  both  his  labors  and  his 
pleasures;  it  saves  him  in  a  thousand  cases 
from  the  necessity  of  deciding  for  himself;  it 
leaves  nothing  or  almost  nothing  to  his  indi- 
vidual initiative;  it  watches  over  every  class, 
and  each  unit  in  every  class;  it  banishes  pov- 
erty; it  assures  Germans  of  a  stipend  in  their 
old  age;  it  allows  them  to  explore  vast  laby- 
rinths of  erudition;  it  offers  them  books,  mu- 
sic, art,  in  heaping  measure :  and  in  return  for 
all  this,  it  exacts  only  obedience,  that  virtue 
from  exercising  which  a  German  is  supposed  to 
derive  as  much  pleasure  as  other  persons  de- 
rive from  love.  So  Germany  is,  on  the  avowal 
of  its  own  officials,  the  Earthly  Paradise, 
dreamt  of  for  ages  and  yearned  for  by  sorely 
tried  men  and  women  of  all  races,  and  now  at 
last  put  into  happy  operation  by  the  wizards 
of  Kultur. 

But  what  strange  fact  is  this  which  shat- 


194    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

ters  our  alluring  vision  of  the  Earthly  Para- 
dise ?  Why  is  it  that  emigrants  east  and  west, 
north  and  south,  discontented  or  downtrod- 
den at  home,  do  not  flock  thither  in  their 
search  of  happier  conditions?  Norwegians, 
Swedes,  and  Finns  need  only  to  cross  the 
Baltic  in  order  to  reach  the  Happy  Land ;  but 
instead,  they  voyage  over  the  sundering  Atlan- 
tic to  the  United  States.  One  would  imagine 
that  the  magnetic  attraction  would  be  so 
strong  on  Danes  and  Dutchmen  that  they 
would  wipe  out  their  frontiers  and  beg  to  be 
merged  in  the  German  Eden.  Why  are  the 
Italians,  rather  a  quick-witted  people,  so 
dull  as  to  travel  to  America,  where  too  often 
grinding  toil  and  a  precarious  existence  await 
them,  when  a  day's  journey  would  bring  them 
into  the  Kaiser's  Empire?  And  so  of  Slavs 
and  Bulgars  and  Greeks  and  Syrians  and 
Armenians,  of  Letts  also  and  Magyars  and 
mishandled  Jews  everywhere  — why  do  not 
they  lay  down  their  burdens  and  become 
residents  of  this  Prussianized  Utopia  ? 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      195 

More  than  twoscore  years  ago,  in  the  kind- 
ness of  their  hearts  the  Germans  insisted  that 
the  inhabitants  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  should 
share  German  hospitahty.  They  argued  that 
these  people,  having  once  been  German,  must 
quickly  feel  at  home,  like  exiles  after  a  long 
absence.  Why  is  it,  then,  that  they  remain 
French,  loathing  everything  German,  refusing 
to  see  in  the  treatment  they  have  had,  or  in 
the  German  ideals  behind  that  treatment,  the 
slightest  resemblance  to  Paradise?  Must  we 
conclude  that  this  German  Happy  Land  is 
happy  only  for  the  Germans  themselves,  as 
the  wasp's  nest,  made  with  much  delicate 
precision  and  such  perfect  efficiency,  is  home 
only  to  wasps  ?  And  what  is  this  dark  fact, 
attested  every  year  by  the  statisticians  ?  The 
number  of  child  suicides  in  Germany  far  ex- 
ceeds, per  capita,  that  in  any  other  country. 
The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  peopled  with  chil- 
dren. Can  it  be  that  a  brief  experience  re- 
veals to  German  children  that  Germany  is 
not  Heaven  ? 


196    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

What  becomes  of  Kultur  as  a  universal  sys- 
tem, if  this  be  true  ?  And  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  Kaiser's  propagandists  in  the  United 
States,  who  openly  proclaim  that  they  mean 
to  Germanize  this  nation?  Can  we  suppose 
that  the  millions  of  descendants  of  those  who 
founded  this  country  on  principles  which  are 
the  negation  of  Prussian  Kultur,  will  abjure 
their  faith?  Or  that  the  other  millions  who 
fled  from  Continental  Europe  to  enjoy  here 
opportunities  and  institutions  denied  them 
there,  will  meekly  consent  to  live  under  Ger- 
man domination?  Will  the  Germans  them- 
selves who  have  settled  here  and  prospered 
and  stubbornly  refused  to  go  home  to  the 
Fatherland,  masquerading  as  Utopia  —  will 
they  join  in  the  conspiracy  to  destroy  this 
Republic  to  which  they  or  their  fathers 
voluntarily  escaped  as  to  a  place  of  salva- 
tion? The  paid  agents  of  the  Kaiser  we  un- 
derstand, but  we  believe  that  they  do  not 
represent  the  great  body  of  the  German  im- 
migration. 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      197 

A  child  of  ordinary  intelligence  could  hardly 
fail  to  ask,  after  being  told  of  the  perfec- 
tion of  Germany  and  the  irresistible  attraction 
of  the  Fatherland  for  Germans,  Why  is  it  that 
the  Germans  do  not  go  home  and  stay  ?  Many 
of  them  have  grown  rich  in  this  country,  and 
they  would  be  able  to  secure  luxury  in  Ger- 
many, where  wealth  is  not  less  potent  than 
it  is  here;  but  neither  rich  nor  poor  go  back. 
Is  it  from  pure  altruism  that  they,  who  can- 
not be  enticed  to  return  to  Germany  for  good, 
insist  that  we  and  the  rest  of  mankind  must 
be  Germanized  ?  And  is  honor  or  logic  want- 
ing in  those  professors,  who,  having  managed 
to  slide  into  American  university  chairs  and 
even  to  become  naturalized  citizens,  make  it 
their  business  to  depreciate  and  actually  to 
condemn  everything  American  and  to  hold 
up  everything  German  as  a  model  for  us  to 
follow?  Why  do  not  they  go  home? 

The  paid  propagandists  of  Germany,  and 
her  other  enthusiastic  emigrants  in  foreign 
lands,  remind  us  of  those  suspiciously  pious 


198    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

persons  who  protest  at  all  times  that  they 
yearn  to  go  to  heaven  at  once,  but  take  every 
possible  precaution  to  live  on  earth  as  long  as 
they  can. 

World-power  or  downfall!  That  is  the  Ger- 
man motto  in  the  Atrocious  War.  With  what 
desperation  the  Kaiser  has  been  seeking  vic- 
tory appears,  not  less  in  his  cynical  disregard 
of  solemn  treaties  and  in  the  ferocity  of  his 
devastation  of  Belgium,  than  in  the  campaign 
of  crime  carried  on  by  agents  in  this  country. 
Only  men  convinced  that  they  must  win,  at 
any  cost  and  by  any  means,  could  resort  to 
the  terrorist  methods  which  these  agents  use. 
But  what  if  the  Kaiser  does  not  win?  In 
what  state  will  the  hyphenate,  seditious  Ger- 
mans here  be  left.^^  Can  they  suppose  that  the 
Americans,  who  are  and  intend  to  remain 
Americans,  will  welcome  them  as  neighbors  ? 
Will  the  American  workmen  who  have  been 
thrown  out  of  employment  by  the  blowing- 
up  of  their  factories  feel  kindly  towards  the 
Teutons  who  committed  these  crimes.'*  Will 


GERMANIZING  AMERICA      199 

American  business  men,  whose  legitimate 
business  and  investments  have  been  blocked 
by  German  capitalists,  cherish  no  resentment  ? 
Will  American  universities  tolerate  profes- 
sors who  have  been  slyly  preaching  sedition? 
It  is  far  more  likely  that  for  a  generation  to 
come  the  very  word  "German''  will  be  de- 
tested in  the  United  States  and  that  every 
German  will  have  to  show  cause  why  he 
should  not  be  regarded  as  a  secret  enemy  of 
this  country.  The  survivors  and  descendants 
of  those  who  are  now  abetting  the  conspiracy 
against  the  United  States  in  behalf  of  a  for- 
eign Power  will  be  as  eager  as  were  the  Cop- 
perheads after  the  Civil  War  to  have  their 
past  forgotten.  The  hyphens  will  fall:  the 
citizens  of  this  country  will  be  Americans 
and  nothing  else;  there  will  be  no  mongrel 
citizenship  to  be  used  as  a  mask  for  treason. 
The  plotters  against  the  United  States,  and 
their  accomplices,  native  or  foreign,  make 
the  fatal  mistake  of  supposing  that  Ameri- 
cans will  long  tolerate  in  the  White  House 


200     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

a  President  who  lacks  courage.  Courage  and 
Honesty  are  the  two  quaUties  which,  in  the 
long  run,  they  set  most  store  by  in  their 
Presidents.  Tragic  would  be  the  occasion  if 
hostile  critics  identified  Cowardice  and  Dis- 
honesty. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    SHIPWRECK  OF   KULTUR 

Wherever  Germany  extends  her  sway,  she  ruins  Culture. 

Nietzsche,  Ecce  Homo,  p.  38. 
Culture  and  the  State  are  antagonists:  a  "  Culture-State" 
is  merely  a  modern  idea.    The  one  lives  upon  the  other, 
the  one  flourishes  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  ...   In  the 
history  of  European  Culture  the  rise  of  the  [German] 
Empire  signifies,  above  all,  a  displacement  of  the  centre  of 
gravity.   Everywhere  people  are  already  aware  of  this:  in 
things  that  really  matter  —  and  these  after  all  constitute 
Culture  —  the  Germans  are  no  longer  worth  considering. 
The  Tzvilight  of  the  Idols,  p.  54. 
Every  great  crime  against  Culture  for  the  last  four  cen- 
turies lies  upon  their  [the  German]  conscience. 

Ecce  Homo  J  p.  124. 

MAN  Started  among  the  beasts  in  whose 
struggle  for  existence  there  is  the 
unending  play  and  counterplay  between  brute 
force  and  cunning.  Man  became  Man  by 
sloughing  ofiF  the  qualities  which  chain  the 
Beast  forever  to  the  Beasts'  level.  Meas- 
uring by  geological  ages  we  see  him  emerge 
with  incredible  slowness  from  Beast-hood  into 
Man-hood;  and  so  up  through  Savagery  and 


202     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Barbarism,  till  he  stands  erect  on  the  lowest 
step  of  Civilization;  and  then  he  mounts,  still 
with  groping  hesitation,  with  frequent  pauses, 
and  with  actual  backslidings,  the  ladder  of 
Ideals.  Gradually  there  dawn  in  him  in- 
stincts, motives,  which  neither  the  Beast,  the 
Savage,  nor  the  Barbarian  ever  knows.  These 
are  the  stuff  through  which  he  discovers  that 
he  has  a  soul,  the  august  and  awful  inmate  of 
his  inmost  self. 

Thenceforward  Man  fares  on  his  journey 
through  life,  a  strange  blend  of  animal  and  of 
spirit  —  the  animal  in  him  always  on  the 
alert  to  regain  entire  mastery,  and  the  spirit, 
though  often  baffled  and  betrayed,  ready  to 
renew  its  divine  mission.  This  antagonism 
runs  through  all  human  affairs ;  and  when  the 
earliest  moralists  looked  beneath  the  surface 
of  life  and  examined  the  fortunes  and  deeds 
of  men,  they  discerned  that  this  is  a  moral 
world  in  which  the  forces  of  good  and  the 
forces  of  evil  —  God  and  Devil  —  battle  for- 
ever for  control.    Subsequent  scrutiny  has 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR    203 

always  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  only 
permanent  good  is  spiritual.  Pride  of  intel- 
lect, beauty  of  form  and  face,  the  conquests 
of  science  over  the  material  world,  the  tri- 
umphs of  war-lords  after  great  battles  won 
and  imperial  territories  annexed  —  these  are 
not  the  true  measure  of  Civilization.  True 
Civilization  is  of  the  spirit,  whose  treasure  the 
world  can  neither  give  nor  take  away.  How 
irrelevant,  how  external  and  fleeting  in  the 
presence  of  Emerson  is  the  uncounted  lucre  of 
Cecil  Rhodes  or  of  Rockefeller!  With  what 
scorn  would  Washington  have  repelled  the 
suggestion  that  he  should  exchange  places 
with  Frederick  the  Great!  With  what  irony 
would  Lincoln  have  dismissed  a  proffered 
exchange  with  William  II!  To  Washington 
and  Lincoln  the  possibility  of  being  degraded 
to  the  level  of  Frederick  and  of  William  would 
have  been  abhorrent. 

So  rapid  has  been  Man's  subjugation  of 
Nature,  and  so  astounding  the  inventions  by 
which  he  has  turned  her  laws  into  servants  of 


204     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

his  own  will,  that  it  has  come  to  be  the  fashion 
to  mistake  these  things  for  progress.  We 
even  hear  them  bhthely  lauded  as  essentials 
of  Civilization.  But  Man,  and  not  his  tools, 
makes  Civilization,  and  its  character  will  be 
either  animal  or  spiritual  according  to  his 
nature.  Ability  to  shoot  up  in  an  express  ele- 
vator to  the  top  of  a  fifty-story  New  York 
sky-scraper,  or  to  motor  a  hundred  miles  in 
an  hour,  or  to  telephone  across  the  continent, 
or  to  send  messages  by  wireless  telegraph, 
does  not  constitute  Civilization.  It  took 
Shakespeare  two  days  to  ride  on  horseback 
from  Stratford  to  London;  has  poetry  out- 
soared  Shakespeare  in  these  days  when  one 
can  be  whirled  from  Stratford  to  London  in 
tw^o  hours  ? 

Inventions  and  ideas  also  bless  or  curse 
according  to  the  spirit  of  their  user.  Hardly 
had  printing  been  discovered,  to  bring  incal- 
culable benefit  to  mankind,  before  the  Devil 
saw  his  profit  in  it,  and  he  has  kept  the 
presses  of  the  world  supplied  with  copy  ever 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR    205 

since.  The  modern  probing  into  Nature  has 
already  produced  a  state  of  mind  in  scientific 
investigators  which  awakens  anxiety  as  to  the 
source  from  which  their  knowledge  springs. 
Many  religions  have  had  a  foreboding  that 
there  dwells  something  at  the  heart  of  the 
world  which  should  not  be  unveiled,  some 
primordial  terror  which,  like  the  Gorgon, 
blasts  those  who  look  upon  it.  To  hide  this 
from  the  common  gaze,  mysteries  were  de- 
vised which  it  was  sacrilege  to  attempt  to 
penetrate,  and  Faith,  not  Reason,  was  de- 
clared the  door  to  the  truth  that  saved. 

Modem  Science,  inquisitive  and  resolute, 
undaunted  and  tireless,  has  drilled  its  shafts 
of  investigation,  and  has  applied  its  micro- 
scope and  its  test-tube  throughout  the  do- 
main of  Matter:  and  it  has  found  Matter, 
and  more  Matter  and  nothing  but  Matter, 
apparently  directed  by  material  laws.  The 
dyer's  hand  is  subdued  to  what  it  works  in. 
Assuming  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  Man,  might 
not  that  spirit  be  slowly  stifled,  materialized, 


2o6     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

and  finally  extinguished  by  continuous  devo- 
tion to  Matter  and  material  laws?  Might  it 
not  even  come  to  pass  that  the  worship  of 
these  material  laws  which  Science  has  evoked 
should  undo  Man,  as  Frankenstein  was  un- 
done by  the  monster  he  created  ?  What  if  the 
Germans  —  having  drawn  aside  the  veil  from 
the  last  mystery — have  seen  that  Moloch  is 
the  Prime  Mover  of  the  world  ? 

We  cannot  call  material  laws  merciless, 
because  they  proceed  from  that  which  feels 
nothing.  So  human  laws  devised  by  mate- 
rialists may  be  logically  unfeeling;  and  the 
rulers  of  a  people  who  have  accepted  the  rev- 
elation that  Moloch  is  God  will  naturally 
develop  a  system  patterned  after  Moloch's 
commands.  Ponder  this  well.  If  the  Prussian 
pagan  creed  is  true,  then  Moloch  is  God:  his 
orders  are  the  shambles  of  battlefields;  the 
sacrifices  most  acceptable  to  him  are  the  vic- 
tims of  combat  and  massacre ;  the  hymns  he 
delights  in  are  the  shrieks  of  ravished  women, 
the  pitiful  cries  of  terrified  little  children,  the 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR     207 

mingled  groans  and  curses  of  wounded  and 
dying  soldiers.  His  high  priests  are  those  who 
lead  the  teeming  miUions  to  slaughter  —  At- 
tila,  and  Tamerlane,  and  William  II  of  Hohen- 
zollern.  This  is  the  corner-stone  of  Kultur, 
this  the  infernal  abyss  into  which  Kultur  has 
already  dragged  Germany  and  would  drag 
mankind. 

Ponder  this  well.  No  plea  for  a  place  in  the 
sun  can  justify  the  cruelty  and  the  cunning 
which  its  attaining  involves.  The  pomp  of 
many  armies,  all  marching  obedient  to  the 
command  of  Moloch's  Vice-Regent,  does  not 
hide  the  butcher's  errand  on  which  they 
speed.  The  Religion  of  Valor  is  a  thin  dis- 
guise for  brutality,  in  which  Man  at  the  touch 
of  the  Devil's  wand  is  metamorphosed  back 
into  his  Beast  Original.  Patriotism  becomes 
the  disguise  under  which  the  primal  instincts 
of  tiger  and  wolf  riot  unleashed.  In  Kultur's 
triumph  Civilization  dies. 

Kultur  is  not  designed  to  benefit  any  other 
race  except  the  German.   If  it  conquered,  it 


2o8    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

would  revive  the  feudal  relation  of  lord  and 
vassal,  Germany  being  the  lord  and  all  other 
peoples  being  her  vassals.  Kultur,  as  we  have 
seen  at  every  point  in  this  survey,  permits 
all  things  to  the  Germans.  Their  religion, 
their  sense  of  honor  and  of  mercy,  their  re- 
spect for  common  men  apply  only  to  them- 
selves. German  truth  ceases  to  be  truth  when 
it  crosses  the  frontier.  Gott,  the  German 
deity,  is  a  tribal  god,  made  in  the  image  of  the 
Germans  who  created  him. 

Shall  we  marvel  most  at  the  patience  with 
which  the  Teutonic  genius  has  reticulated 
such  a  system,  or  at  the  overweening  conceit 
with  which  each  Teuton  regards  himself  with 
supreme  satisfaction  and  Kultur  as  the  per- 
fect Civilization  which  must  be  nailed  down 
and  riveted  over  the  rest  of  the  world  ^  And 
what  shall  we  say  of  a  nation  which  at  this 
late  day  supposes  that  any  one  political  sys- 
tem can  be  the  best  for  all  nations  ?  If  you 
view  mankind  as  it  is,  divided  into  hundreds 
of  varieties,  each  differing  from  the  others  in 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR     209 

traditions,  in  geographical  environment,  and 
in  moral  and  intellectual  capacity,  you  will 
surely  conclude  that  to  attempt  to  stand- 
ardize them  would  be  as  fatuous  as  to  wrap 
the  earth  in  a  uniform  climate.  Such  fatu- 
ity is  born  in  the  brains  of  would-be  world- 
conquerors. 

The  great  and  deep  and  holy  things  of  life 
do  not  come  by  the  sword.  World-conquerors 
by  Frightfulness  may  command  lip-service; 
they  may  batten  on  the  fruits  of  their  vic- 
tim's labor:  but  they  cannot  command  re- 
spect or  friendship,  loyalty  or  love.  Of  all 
the  conquering  races,  the  Prussian  has  thus 
far  been  the  least  fitted  to  conciliate  the  van- 
quished. After  one  hundred  and  forty  years 
Polish  Prussia,  although  it  has  suffered  unin- 
termitted  persecution,  remains  Polish  in  de- 
sires and  hopes  and  still  requires  to  be  terri- 
fied. Forty-five  years  of  Prussian  hectoring 
in  Alsace  and  Lorraine  have  not  diminished 
by  a  hair's  breadth  the  French  spirit  there. 
In  their  more  recent  colonial  possessions  the 


210     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

Germans  have  not  even  pretended  to  wish  to 
secure  the  good-will  of  their  subjects,  it  being 
a  dogma  of  Kultur  that  the  dark-skinned 
races  are  in  fact  only  animals,  to  be  treated  as 
such. 

But  above  political  and  military  systems, 
above  tribal  customs  and  standards  condi- 
tioned by  climate,  are  a  few  hallowed  prin- 
ciples which  sum  up  the  ideals  of  civilized 
men,  ideals  which  even  the  least  civilized 
have  acknowledged,  and  all  have  endeavored, 
according  to  their  varying  capacity,  to  serve. 
Justice  is  one  of  these  principles;  Freedom 
is  another;  Pity,  another. 

The  State  worshiped  by  the  Germans  as 
an  abstraction  "above  Society"  is  indeed  just 
as  personal  as  was  its  medieval  prototype. 
But  in  the  Middle  Ages,  Church  and  State 
went  together;  and  the  Church,  which  was  the 
organ  of  religion,  exercised,  in  theory  at  least, 
authority  over  the  State  in  those  matters  into 
which  religion  or  morals  entered.  But  mark 
well  that  in  the  system  devised  by  Kultur, 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR     211 

the  State  is  omnipotent.  Kultur  recognizes 
neither  morals  nor  rehgion  apart  from  po- 
litical considerations.  The  conscience  of  the 
Germans  and  their  public  and  private  acts  are 
in  the  keeping  of  this  godless  abstraction.  No 
wonder  that  poor  old  Haeckel  shouts  out 
his  octogenarian  rejoicing  that  the  war  has 
proved  that  God  and  immortality  are  absurd 
delusions,  and  that  Kultur  is  the  highest 
achievement  of  Man. 

I  quote  from  a  private  letter,  written  by  an 
eminent  physician  with  the  British  expedi- 
tion in  France  to  a  distinguished  American 
physician :  — 

With  all  my  soul  I  believe  that  the  Ideal  of 
pity  is  the  noblest  thing  we  have,  and  that  its 
denial,  which  waves  on  every  German  flag,  is 
the  denial  of  all  that  the  greatest  men  have 
striven  for  for  centuries.  I  see  In  this  war  the 
colossal  strife  between  the  doctrine  which  I  call 
good,  and  der  Geist  der  stets  verneint.  You  see  I 
am  almost  borrowing  the  language  of  the  Kaiser. 
I  feel  that  the  two  enormous  spirits  that  move 
this  world  are  showing  their  weapons  almost 
visibly,  and  that  never  was  the  garment  of  the 


212     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

living  world  so  thin  over  the  gods  that  it  con- 
ceals. 

I  am  not  much  elated  by  the  thought.  I  have 
little  opinion  of  Providence  as  an  ally.  1  am 
surprised  at  the  weakness  that  the  Kaiser  shows 
for  his  pocket  Deity.  What  we  have  to  do  in  my 
opinion  we  do  ourselves,  and  our  task  is  none 
the  lighter  that  we  defend  the  right.  But  I  am 
hardened  and  set  by  the  thing  I  believe.  I  and 
my  dear  boy  ^  talked  of  it  much  as  I  am  talking 
to  you,  for  we  were  close  friends,  and  we  felt, 
both  of  us,  that  we  were  fighting  for  the  life  of 
England  —  yes,  for  the  safety  of  France  —  yes, 
for  the  sanctity  of  treaties  —  yes,  but,  behind 
these  secondary  and  comparatively  material 
issues,  for  something  far  deeper,  far  greater,  for 
something  so  great  and  deep  that,  if  our  efforts 
fail,  I  pray  God  I  may  die  before  I  see  it. 

Kultur,  which  shuts  out  Justice  and  Free- 
dom and  Pity,  shuts  out  Chivalry  also,  which, 
if  it  be  not  fundamental  like  these  three, 
is  the  fragrance  of  the  higher  Civilization. 
Saladin,  the  Arab,  had  it,  in  his  conflict  with 
the  Crusaders.  It  was  the  ideal  of  every 
worthy  knight  in  Christendom ;  it  is  a  second 

^  The  son  had  recently  been  killed. 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR     213 

nature  to  every  modern  gentleman.  Grant 
had  it  at  Appomattox,  when  he  bade  the 
vanquished  officers  of  the  Confederacy  to  keep 
their  side-arms,  and  spared  them  the  slight- 
est suggestion  of  humiliation.  But  Chivalry 
seems  to  have  found  no  lodgment  in  Prussia. 
I  recall  no  generous  act  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  or  of  Bismarck  when  he  imposed  terms 
on  fallen  France.  The  Prussian  is  not  satiated 
by  the  overthrow  of  his  enemies;  he  must  see 
them  prostrate  in  the  dust  and  plant  his 
heavy  foot  upon  their  necks. 

A  nation  accessible  to  Chivalry  would 
neither  have  ordered  the  torpedoing  of  the 
passenger  ship  Lusitania  filled  with  noncom- 
batants,  nor  have  gloated  over  the  crime, 
holding  great  meetings  for  exultation  and 
gathering  the  children  of  the  Fatherland  into 
theatres  and  churches  to  sing  hallelujahs  over 
the  destruction  of  those  twelve  hundred  inno- 
cent souls.  I  turn  away  from  such  barbaric 
rejoicings  to  the  pictures  of  the  sea  strewn 
with  the  bodies  of  drowned  babies  and  of 


214    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

drowned  mothers  clasping  their  Httle  ones 
in  their  arms.  Happy  those  little  ones,  who 
could  never  grow  up  to  have  hearts  like  the 
Germans,  bereft  alike  of  Chivalry  and  of 
Pity!  Happy,  too,  those  mothers,  who  dis- 
played in  the  swift,  final  test  of  life  that 
mother-love  which  neither  Kaiser,  Krupp,  nor 
Kultur  can  vanquish. 

Where  was  Chivalry  when  Von  Bissing,  the 
Prussian  Governor  of  Belgium,  ordered  Edith 
Cavell's  execution  ?  If  she  had  been  guilty  of 
the  worst  crimes  imputed  to  her,  she  might 
at  least  have  been  put  to  death  with  decency. 
Instead  of  that,  Von  Bissing  let  only  a  few 
hours  intervene  between  her  condemnation 
and  her  being  led  out  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  to  face  the  platoon  of  soldiers.  No 
respite  allowed  for  reviewing  the  evidence ;  no 
person  except  the  prison  chaplain  permitted 
to  see  her;  no  friend  to  take  her  last  message; 
all  hurried,  clandestine,  ruthless,  as  if  Von 
Bissing  feared  that  he  might  be  deprived 
of  his  victim;  he,  backed  by  the  ful^power 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR     215 

of  Germany;  she,  one  woman  alone  in  an  im- 
pregnable cell,  ringed  about  by  a  fortress  with 
regiments  to  defend  it.  And  when  they  had 
shot  her.  Von  Hissing's  agents,  wishing  to 
debase  her  memory,  gave  out  to  the  papers 
that  she  had  quailed  and  broken  down  and 
pleaded  for  mercy:  but  the  prison  chaplain 
told  the  truth.  Such  is  Chivalry  as  practiced 
by  William  IFs  chosen  officers. 

Thus,  wherever  we  test  it,  Kultur  breaks 
down.  It  has  created  a  nation  which  boasts 
itself  superior  to  the  common  laws  of  human- 
ity; a  nation  which  asserts  that  Honor  and 
Justice  and  Truth,  that  Pity  and  Chivalry 
and  Self-sacrifice,  have  no  meaning  for  it  in 
its  dealings  with  the  whole  world  outside.  It 
might  as  well  assert  that  the  law  of  gravity 
or  the  formulas  of  algebra  applicable  else- 
where ceased  to  operate  on  German  soil. 
Kultur,  proclaimed  by  the  Germans  as  a  sys- 
tem which  will  overspread  the  earth,  is  in 
reality  not  universal,  but  local,  tribal,  nar- 
rowing. No  modern  race  except  the  Germans 


2i6    GERMANY  us.  CIVILIZATION 

could  have  invented  it;  so  only  Germans  can 
both  use  it  and  glory  in  its  use.  It  is  like  the 
harness  of  steel  and  straps  which  a  cripple  has 
to  wear:  by  practice  he  learns  to  move  about 
in  it  with  ease;  but  though  he  be  a  giant,  he 
is  none  the  less  a  cripple,  and  the  steel  and 
straps  are  none  the  less  a  harness. 

"But  what!"  you  ask;  *'has  not  Kultur 
produced  the  highest  efficiency  ever  known 
to  man.?  Has  it  not  trained  sixty  millions  to 
such  mechanical  skill  and  mental  docility  that 
at  a  signal  from  Berlin  they  all  turn  east  and 
bow  in  unison,  and  at  another  signal  they  all 
turn  west.?  Has  not  Kultur  created  an  army 
so  perfect  that  its  units  and  individuals  could 
hardly  be  more  machine-like  if  they  were 
actually  cogs  and  bolts  of  iron  ?  Has  not  Kul- 
tur resulted  in  a  system  of  education  which 
directs  every  German  at  every  moment  of 
his  life  from  the  day  he  enters  the  Kinder- 
garten to  the  day  when  he  becomes  a  doctor 
of  philosophy.?  Has  not  Kultur  applied  sci- 
ence to  industry  and  to  commerce  as  well  as 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR    217 

to  the  most  trifling  daily  needs?  Has  it  not 
subjected  religion  and  philosophy,  poetry, 
history,  and  letters,  to  the  microscope  of  crit- 
icism? Has  any  other  system  imposed  an 
equally  rigid  discipline  or  been  rewarded  by 
an  equally  submissive  obedience  ? " 

To  all  these  questions  there  is  but  one 
answer:  Kultur  has  achieved  this,  and  the 
achievement  marks  at  once  the  glory  and 
shipwreck  of  Kultur.  The  object  of  every 
beneficent  teaching  is  to  take  even  human 
clods  and  evoke  the  souls  latent  in  them; 
Kultur  takes  Germans  and  reduces  them  to 
the  state  of  soulless  machines.  EflSciency  is  of 
itself  no  more  praiseworthy  than  is  electric- 
ity. The  vital  consideration  is,  who  applies  it 
and  for  what  purpose.  If  the  object  be  evil, 
then  the  harm  done  is  greater  in  proportion 
to  the  greater  efficiency.  The  voltage  of  a 
lightning  bolt  which  sets  fire  to  a  town  might 
supply  power  to  run  a  dozen  factories. 
Granted  that  Kultur-made  efficiency  ranks 
first,  has  it  been  justified  by  its  works?  Are 


2i8    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

the  system  which  plotted  for  the  Atrocious 
War,  and  the  efficiency  which  has  conducted 
it,  to  be  commended  as  the  final  crown  of 
Civilization?  Would  you  who  read  be  proud 
of  your  scheme  of  life  if  it  revealed  you  as 
cruel,  dishonorable,  lying,  unchivalrous,  and 
as  an  egomaniac  who  did  not  shrink  at  mur- 
der? Under  the  touchstone  of  Kultur  collec- 
tive Germany  stands  so  revealed.  Satan, 
who  turns  all  material  inventions  to  his  own 
uses,  and  sucks  out  the  souls  of  men  in  order 
that  their  bodies  and  their  minds  may  serve 
him,  is  the  Master  of  that  Efficiency  for  Hate 
which  Kultur  has  bred  in  Germany. 

"We  don't  care  how  many  nations  hate  us, 
so  long  as  they  fear  us,"  said  recently  a  leader 
of  German  opinion.  In  such  words  Kultur 
epitomizes  its  message  to  mankind;  in  such 
words  posterity  will  write  its  epitaph. 

Kultur  has  had  many  forerunners,  differ- 
ing in  specific  aim  and  in  scale,  but  similar  in 
character.  The  Spanish  Inquisition,  for  in- 
stance, was  in  essence  almost  the  exact  coun- 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR    219 

terpart  of  Kultur.  It  strove  to  compel  abso- 
lute submission  to  itself  as  the  agency  "  above 
Society/'  not  of  the  Prussian  Gott,  but  of  a 
perversion  of  the  Christian  God.  The  Inquisi- 
tion threw  over  Humanity,  Justice,  Mercy, 
and  set  up  standards  of  its  own,  intended  to 
promote  only  its  own  interests.  To  secure 
conformity  and  obedience,  it  imprisoned,  har- 
assed, terrorized,  tortured,  and  destroyed  its 
victims.  Like  Kultur,  the  Inquisition  main- 
tained a  large  corps  of  eavesdroppers  and 
spies.  Like  Kultur,  it  taught  a  nation  to  ac- 
cept without  demur  its  declaration  that  it 
was  engaged  in  the  highest  mission  known 
to  mankind.  It  did  not,  indeed,  organize  an 
army  to  wage  bodily  war  against  its  enemies; 
it  simply  used,  in  case  of  need,  the  armed  force 
of  temporal  rulers  to  carry  out  its  commands. 
It  both  aspired  to  be  and  was  a  world-power, 
in  so  far  as  it  was  co-extensive  with  the  Span- 
ish Empire. 

Millions  of  people  accepted  the  teachings 
of  the  Inquisition  and  fell  quite  naturally  into 


220    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

the  inhuman  state  of  mind  which  such  teach- 
ings induce.  Like  many  a  German  who  would 
personally  shrink  from  committing  cruel  acts, 
the  Spaniards  and  the  other  races  whom  the 
Inquisition  held  in  subjection  came  to  gloat 
over  collective  cruelty.  How  many  millions 
of  holiday-makers,  men,  women,  and  children, 
went  out  from  Seville  to  the  Quemadero  and 
witnessed  with  rejoicing  the  autos-da-fe  of 
thirty-five  thousand  heretics  whom  the  In- 
quisition burned  there  in  the  course  of  three 
centuries?  The  feelings  of  those  Spanish 
spectators,  as  they  beheld  such  human  sacri- 
fice offered  up  by  the  Inquisition  to  its  deity, 
did  not  differ  from  those  of  the  Aztecs  who 
watched  the  blood  sacrifices  on  their  pyramid 
temples,  or  from  those  of  the  French  Terror- 
ists who  attended  the  daily  exercise  of  the 
guillotine,  or  from  those  of  the  Germans  who 
shouted  their  hallelujahs  at  the  slaughter  of 
the  innocents  in  the  Lusitania. 
I  Under  whatever  name  Kultur  operates,  it 
tends  downward.  The  individual  who  thinks 


THE  SHIPWRECK  OF  KULTUR    221 

himself  a  Superman  is  likely  to  end  in  a  mad- 
house or  on  the  gallows:  the  nation,  despotic 
king,  or  hierarchy,  which  substitutes  its  own 
selfish  interests  for  humanity,  shuts  itself  out 
from  humanity,  becomes  inhuman,  revives 
and  worships  standards  of  the  Beast,  and 
heads  straight  for  perdition. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

DESPOTISM   OR  DEMOCRACY? 

Those  arguments  that  are  made,  that  the  inferior  race 
are  to  be  treated  with  as  much  allowance  as  they  are  cap- 
able of  enjoying;  that  as  much  is  to  be  done  for  them  as  their 
condition  will  allow,  —  what  are  these  arguments?  They 
are  the  arguments  that  kings  have  made  for  enslaving  the 
people  in  all  ages  of  the  world.  ...  All  the  arguments  in 
favor  of  kingcraft  were  of  this  class;  they  always  bestrode 
the  necks  of  the  people  —  not  that  they  wanted  to  do  it, 
but  because  the  people  were  better  off  for  being  ridden.  .  .  . 
Turn  it  whatever  way  you  will,  —  whether  it  come  from 
the  mouth  of  a  king,  an  excuse  for  enslaving  the  people 
of  his  country,  or  from  the  mouth  of  men  of  one  race  as  a 
reason  for  enslaving  the  men  of  another  race,  —  it  is  all 
the  same  old  serpent. 

Lincoln,  Reply  to  Douglas,  Chicago,  July  lo,  1858. 

ON  July  3,  1866,  when  Prussia,  by  de- 
feating Austria  at  Sadowa,  became 
preponderant  in  Germany,  the  Champion  of 
European  Despotism  in  an  irrepressible  con- 
flict with  Democracy  was  designated.  Had 
Prussia  been  beaten  there,  she  might  never 
have  dominated  Germany,  especially  if  Bis- 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?     223 

marck  had  carried  out  his  resolve  to  blow  his 
brains  out  in  case  of  defeat.  The  triumph  of 
Prussia  then  and  her  overwhelming  victory 
in  1870  made  her  the  citadel  of  European 
Despotism.  Her  talent  for  organization,  the 
feudal  instinct  innate  in  the  Germans,  the 
Hohenzollern  ambition,  the  tenacity  of  the 
upper  classes,  the  bureaucracy,  and  the  genius 
of  Bismarck,  all  worked  together  to  perfect 
a  despotic  machine  fitted  not  only  to  repel 
the  invasion  of  Democracy  but  to  conquer  it. 
Less  than  half  a  century  ago  Bismarck  pre- 
dicted that  constitutional  government  would 
soon  cease  to  exist  in  Europe.  By  a  note- 
worthy coincidence  Moltke  said  that  the 
Germans  would  have  to  be  ready  for  fifty 
years  to  defend  Alsace  and  Lorraine — a  hint 
that  he  had  created  an  excuse  for  perpetuat- 
ing Militarism  in  the  German  Empire.  Bis- 
marck so  disliked  having  a  republic  for  a 
neighbor  that  he  even  considered  intriguing 
with  the  French  Imperialists  to  restore  Napo- 
leon III  to  the  throne;  but  as  time  went  on  he 


224    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

thought  that  the  lack  of  centraHzation  in  a 
repubHc  and  the  inability  to  act  quickly  and 
unitedly  more  than  counterbalanced  the  pos- 
sible harm  that  might  come  from  the  sight 
of  a  republic  on  the  German  frontier.  Sure  of 
his  competence  to  bleed  France  white  when- 
ever he  chose,  he  took  malign  pleasure  in 
the  blunders  of  the  French  Republic,  holding 
them  up  as  proofs  of  the  inferiority  of  the 
republican  form  of  government.  Before  1870 
free  institutions  were  the  ideal  of  many 
middle-class  Germans,  and  of  some  aristocrats; 
but  after  1870  the  ideal  of  Freedom  slowly 
faded  away,  and  the  fact  of  Despotism,  thinly 
disguised  at  first,  took  its  place.  The  German 
incapacity  for  self-government,  openly  pro- 
claimed by  their  leaders,  from  Bismarck  to 
Bernhardi,  was  shown  by  the  readiness  with 
which  they  allowed  themselves  to  be  pater- 
nalized. 

The  only  element  which  did  not  willingly 
take  its  place  in  the  autocratic  system  was  the 
Socialist.   Bismarck  persecuted  the  Socialists, 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?     225 

and  yet  they  multiplied.  The  Kaiser  declared 
that  to  him  "the  word  Social  Democrat  is 
synonymous  with  enemy  of  Empire  and 
Fatherland,"  and  he  handled  them  roughly; 
but  still  they  grew.  Nevertheless,  they  have 
had  as  yet  no  influence  in  checking  Militarism 
or  in  spreading  popular  liberty,  and  they  were 
as  chaffs  before  a  hurricane  when  the  Kaiser 
proclaimed  his  Atrocious  War.  Prussianized 
Germany  stood  unshaken  as  the  champion" 
of  Despotism.  Nothing  could  be  more  nat- 
ural than  that  Austria-Hungary  should  have 
clung  to  her  as  a  vassal  to  his  suzerain;  be- 
cause the  Austrian  dynasty  was  as  insatiate 
as  the  Prussian  for  autocratic  rule,  but  had 
grown  too  senile  to  exercise  it  successfully. 
So,  too,  the  Turkish  Sultan  recognized  in  the 
German  Emperor  a  bird  of  kindred  feather 
whose  golden  perch  he  gladly  shared.  Nor 
is  it  insignificant  that  William  II  has  exerted 
an  influence  on  the  Holy  See  surpassing  that ' 
of  any  other  Protestant  monarch:  for  the 
Roman  Papacy,  like  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 


226    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

of  which  the  German  Empire  regards  itself 
as  the  heir,  was  the  most  remarkable  of 
medieval  products. 

Aristocracies  are  everywhere  solidaire.  One 
noble  does  not  need  to  tell  another  that  their 
existence  depends  on  maintaining  the  social 
and  political  system  which  upholds  privilege 
and  assigns  the  highest  privileges  to  aristo- 
crats. But  not  the  upper  classes  alone,  every 
class  which  has  acquired  vested  rights  or  a 
preferred  social  position  resists  the  modifica- 
tion of  the  system  in  which  it  lives.  The  Prus- 
sianized German  Despotism  has  very  cleverly 
arranged  it  so  that  the  Ballins,  Krupps,  and 
scores  of  similar  capitalists,  who,  if  they  were 
Americans,  German  critics  would  brand  as 
vulgar  plutocrats,  are  much-honored  mem- 
bers of  the  social  organism.  Indeed,  Junkers 
intermarry  gladly  with  the  plutocrats,  and 
the  Kaiser  has  always  shown  a  preference  for 
millionaires  —  condescensions  which  relieve 
them  from  any  social  disability.  But  the 
really  vital  fact  to  note  is,  that  the  Hohen- 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?     227 

zollern  Autocrat  has  bound  not  only  the 
Court,  the  official  Church,  and  the  Nobility, 
but  also  Capital  to  his  cause.  The  lower 
classes  alone  have  not  been  completely  won 
over.  So  powerfully  welded  together  are  the 
forces  of  Despotism  in  Germany ! 

Democracy  has  no  such  organization.  If 
the  President  of  the  United  States  or  of 
France,  if  the  King  of  England  or  of  Italy 
were  to  brandish  a  sword  and  shout,  "  My  will 
is  the  supreme  law  of  the  State;  I  hold  the 
life  and  death  of  every  inhabitant  in  the  hol- 
low of  my  hand!"  the  people  of  those  coun- 
tries would  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter 
which  would  echo  round  the  globe,  and  then 
they  would  appoint  a  commission  de  lunatico 
inquirendo.  That  the  Germans  have  listened 
reverently  to  such  pronouncements  by  their 
Kaiser,  accepting  them  as  proper  and  logical, 
indicates  how  far  apart  Despotism  and  De- 
mocracy stand,  and  how  irreconcilable  their 
doctrines  are. 

Once  all  governments  were  despotic.  Then 


228    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

a  group  or  class  acquired  certain  rights. 
Then  the  conception  of  individual  liberty  was 
slowly  evolved.  Every  one  possessed  an  irre- 
ducible minimum  of  selfhood,  most  precious 
to  himself,  which  no  power  had  the  right  to 
deprive  him  of.  Out  of  this  came  republics 
of  free  men  and  the  gradual  extending  of 
political  freedom  from  class  to  class,  until  the 
lowest  received  it  and  true  Democracy  was 
reached. 

The  peoples  through  whom  this  demo- 
cratizing process  worked  came  to  regard  the 
ideal  of  Freedom,  like  that  of  Justice,  as  axi- 
omatic: a  slave  no  more  requires  to  be  per- 
suaded that  freedom  is  better  than  slavery 
than  does  a  sick  man  that  health  is  better  than 
disease.  The  champions  of  Democracy  were 
too  certain  that  its  truths  are  self-evident 
and  will  automatically  work  the  conversion 
of  every  doubter  as  soon  as  he  hears  them. 
The  fundamental  need  of  Democracy  is  dis- 
cipline, and  that  is  all  the  more  difficult  to 
organize  and  apply  in  a  society  based  on  the 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?    229 

cardinal  principle  that  each  of  its  members 
shall  be  hampered  as  little  as  possible  by  the 
State  in  his  personal  freedom. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  bemoan  the  de- 
fects and  failures  of  Democracy  and  to  over- 
look its  mighty  achievement  that  we  too 
readily  swell  the  chorus  of  its  enemies.  The 
truth,  however,  that  the  American  Republic 
should  have  progressed  as  far  as  it  has  towards 
Democracy  is  more  stupendous  than  that 
Prussia  should  have  transformed  Germany 
into  a  Despotism  of  the  highest  Prussian  type. 
In  America  we  had  to  overcome  the  inherent 
obstacles  raised  by  geography  and  clashing 
sectional  interests,  besides  the  difficulties 
which  confront  a  great  experiment,  and  then 
we  have  had  to  assimilate  forty  or  fifty  mil- 
lions of  foreign  birth  or  foreign  parentage, 
who  came  mostly  from  countries  where 
Democracy  was  unknown,  and  where  the 
proposition  that  men  are  created  free  was 
scoffed  at.  Prussia,  on  the  contrary,  found 
the  Germans  a  homogeneous  people,  already 


230    GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

moulded  as  to  temperament  and  customs, 
and  abnormally  responsive  to  discipline,  who 
changed  with  little  sense  of  dislocation  from 
the  treadmills  of  their  particular  States  to 
the  Imperial  treadmill  whose  pace  was  regu- 
lated at  Berlin. 

Prussia  also,  let  us  not  forget,  did  not  trust 
to  the  innate  seduction  of  her  doctrines  to 
convert  her  German  neighbors.  She  relied 
first  on  military  coercion,  the  method  repug- 
nant to  Liberal  souls.  "Anybody  can  govern 
by  martial  law,"  said  Cavour.  Nor  should  we 
forget  that  it  is  easier  to  work  to  perfection 
a  lower  species  of  government  than  to  run  a 
higher  species  even  with  mediocre  results. 
As  Despotisms  were  early  forms,  so  they  have 
remained  lower  forms.  I  doubt  whether  the 
efficiency  of  the  HohenzoUem  Despotism  is 
relatively  greater  than  that  of  Rameses  the 
Second.  The  chief  difference  which  would 
strike  Rameses,  if  he  visited  Prussia  today, 
would  be  that,  instead  of  multitudes  of 
avowed  slaves,  he  would  find  that  the  hewers 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?    231 

of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  although  the 
Kaiser's  will  is  absolute  over  them,  thought 
and  called  themselves  freemen;  and  on  inquir- 
ing, he  would  be  told  that  this  is  a  subtle 
tribute  to  the  very  democratizing  spirit 
against  which  German  Despotism  has  forti- 
fied itself.  It  tries  to  hide  its  own  nature 
under  a  new  name,  but  poison  is  poison,  what- 
ever the  label  on  the  bottle. 

So  the  fated  conflict  between  Despotism 
and  Democracy  is  joined.  Despotism  has 
organized  as  never  before.  Under  the  flimsy 
decoy  of  the  State  it  has  enticed  all  classes  in 
Germany  to  trust  their  destiny  in  its  hands. 
It  has  taught  them,  just  as  the  Inquisition 
taught  its  millions,  that  it  is  their  mission  to 
impose  Kultur  on  all  peoples,  exterminating 
those  who  resist.  It  has  revamped  the  pagan 
religion  of  Valor,  in  which  Odin  is  renamed 
Gott.  It  has  its  willing  historians  and  phil- 
osophers and  its  obsequious  moralists  and 
professors;  it  has  its  Krupp. 

Its  antagonist,  Democracy,  has  never  been 


232     GERMANY  vs,  CIVILIZATION 

organized  against  such  a  concrete  enemy;  but 
the  time  has  now  come  when  the  Democratic 
nations  must  prove  that  they  can,  not  only 
defend  themselves  against  Teutonic  Despo- 
tism, with  its  Turkish  accomplice,  but  can 
put  down  and  hold  down  the  outlaws  who 
would  destroy  Civilization  and  set  up  Kultur 
in  its  stead. 

We  Americans  must  not  be  lulled  into  in- 
action by  the  belief  that  this  Titanic  struggle 
does  not  and  cannot  concern  us.  The  Germans 
make  no  secret  of  their  calculation  that,  when 
they  have  destroyed  the  British  Empire, 
only  Russia  and  the  United  States  will  stand 
between  them  and  world-dominion.  Russia 
is  so  backward  that  they  think  it  will  require 
two  or  three  generations  for  her  to  become  an 
imminent  danger;  but  they  regard  the  United 
States  as  an  easy  prey  —  the  "damned  Yan- 
kees," as  one  of  their  diplomats  recently  called 
us,  are  "so  simple."  With  Imperial  Britain 
and  the  British  Navy  shattered,  they  reckon 
that  a  few  years  will  suffice   to  give  them 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?    233 

control  over  here.  The  Atlantic  Ocean  has 
ceased  to  be  a  protection  against  material 
assaults;  and  since  about  1900  the  United 
States  have  been  infested  by  the  agents  of 
Kultur  who  say  now  openly,  what  only  a  little 
while  ago  they  whispered  in  their  secret  bur- 
rows, that  they  are  going  to  Germanize  this 
country.  They  have  found  demagogues — • 
"demagogues  are  the  commonplace  of  his- 
tory"—  to  work  slyly  in  their  behalf,  and 
they  have  gathered  into  their  service  unsus- 
pecting sentimentalists,  visionaries  who  de- 
lude themselves  into  thinking  that  the  Atro- 
cious War  can  be  stopped  by  uttering  a  few 
ladylike  phrases  and  that  the  wounds  of  the 
ten  million  living  victims  of  Kultur  can  be 
healed  by  a  little  sprinkling  of  rose-water. 

But  this  Republic,  reserved  by  Providence 
to  be  the  land  in  which  the  children  of  all 
races  should  unite  and  prove  that  the  higher 
Democracy  is  not  an  unrealizable  dream, 
must  not  perish  now  by  the  asphyxiating 
gases  of  the  German  propagandists  or  by 


234    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

demagogues  and  deluded  visionaries.  Having 
been  warned,  we  must  be  prepared,  not  merely 
because  of  the  peril  that  our  own  lives  and 
condition  may  run,  but  far  more  in  order  that 
we  may  hand  on  to  posterity  the  holy  prin- 
ciples of  Democracy,  which  many  generations 
of  the  noblest  men  and  women  toiled  and  bled 
and  died  to  establish. 

The  Liberty  which  Democracy  aspires  to 
is  not  a  fixed  substance.  It  cannot  be  pre- 
scribed in  uniform  portions  to  all  peoples 
alike.  It  is,  rather,  a  state  of  mind,  a  spiritual 
influence,  which  transforms  those  who  possess 
it.  If  it  were  to  be  suddenly  given  to  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  same  measure  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish have  had  it  for  generations,  it  would 
probably  craze  them.  If  it  should  adopt  the 
creed  of  Kultur  and  set  out  to  force  itself  on 
the  world,  under  penalty  of  slaying  those  who 
resisted,  it  would  cease  to  be  Liberty. 

Do  not  be  deceived.  In  this  conflict  there 
can  be  neither  truce  nor  compromise.  Do  not 
suppose,  you  who  shuddered  to  hear  how 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY  ?     235 

Kultur  practiced  Frightfulness  in  Belgium, 
that  the  same  Frightfulness  will  not  be  un- 
leashed here  as  soon  as  an  army  of  Kultur 
gains  a  foothold  on  our  shores.  The  Germans 
here  who  shouted  their  shameless  "Hoch! 
Hoch!"  over  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  will 
indulge  in  orgies  of  rejoicing  if  ever  they  see 
New  York  or  Boston  or  Philadelphia  blasted 
by  Frightfulness.  The  most  honored  men  of 
these  cities  will  be  taken  as  hostages,  abused 
and  murdered  as  if  they  were  Belgian  notables, 
and  the  women  —  let  Belgium  teach  what 
will  be  their  fate.  For  the  Germans  sneer  at 
us  as  a  pusillanimous  people,  easily  terror- 
ized, and  they  think  that  we  neither  can  nor 
will  defend  ourselves. 

Two  years  ago  few  Americans  believed  that 
the  Kaiser  and  his  Ring  would  ever  start  the 
world-war  which  they  had  long  planned.  It 
seemed  too  wild,  if  not  too  wicked;  and  it 
seemed  incredible  that  sixty  million  Germans 
really  accepted  Kultur  as  their  religion.  But 
the  crime  was  committed,  and   Kultur  has 


236     GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

thrown  down  its  mask.  Let  no  one  hope, 
therefore,  that  higher  ideals  alone  will  save 
Civilization,  or  that  it  is  unthinkable  that  in 
this  twentieth  century  a  system  which  re- 
duces man  and  society  to  a  machine,  which 
revives  the  barbaric  creed  that  war  is  the  nor- 
mal state  of  the  human  race,  which  preaches 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  strong  to  persecute 
and  exterminate  the  weak,  can  overcome  the 
world.  Four  centuries  ago  the  Spaniards, 
who  according  to  their  lights  matched  the 
modern  Germans,  took  the  ascendant  in 
Europe  and  held  it  for  fourscore  years,  and 
wherever  they  settled  moral  and  intellectual 
blight  ensued.  Let  us  see  to  it  that  the 
Prussianized  Germans  are  not  allowed  to 
spread  a  similar  blight  and  to  restore  under 
new  forms  the  barbarism  of  the  Vandals  and 
Huns. 

Do  you  believe  that  every  man  by  virtue 
of  being  a  man  has  inalienable  rights  which 
no  master  should  deprive  him  of?  Do  you 
believe  that  the  condition  of  humanity  into 


DESPOTISM  OR  DEMOCRACY?     237 

which  we  all  are  born  creates  ties  which  bind 
us  all  together,  and  warrants  each  of  us  in 
looking  for  certain  common  attributes  like 
pity  and  the  love  of  liberty  in  all  our  fellows? 
Or  do  you  believe  that  a  few  are  born  to  phys* 
ical  strength  which  entitles  them  to  domi- 
nate and  enslave  the  others  with  whom  they 
acknowledge  no  bond  nor  kinship?  "Man- 
kind," said  Prince  Windisch-Gratz,  that  typi- 
cal Teuton,  "begins  with  Barons."  Is  Love 
or  Hate  the  corner-stone  of  your  religion  and 
the  inspirer  of  your  conduct?  In  the  crises 
of  your  life,  when  you  turn  for  help  to  an- 
other, does  your  ideal  lead  you  to  expect  to 
see  his  human  features  fade  out  and  leave  you 
face  to  face  with  a  wolf  or  a  tiger?  That  is 
the  culmination  of  Kultur. 

Those  of  us  who  believe  in  Civilization 
know  that  Liberty  —  the  soul  of  Democracy 
—  is  the  condition  without  which  permanent, 
spiritual  good  can  neither  spring  up  nor  thrive. 
In  its  deathless  presence  the  Imperial  lusts 
of  the  HohenzoUerns,  like  the  empires  of  those 


138    GERMANY  vs.  CIVILIZATION 

who  were  greater  than  they,  are  seen  in  their 
true  nature,  material,  mundane,  mortal. 

"  For  He  that  worketh  high  and  wise, 
Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies, 
Ere  Freedom  out  of  man." 


THE    END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


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